When it Rains
by Chuquita
Summary: When a lack of updates and an overly playful Goku drive Vegeta into temporary hiding within the bowels of Capsule Corp, he decides to take out his frustration on an old typewriter and come up with his own movie plotline. With a morbidly curious Bulma to referee, what kind of dastardly adventure will the prince come up with?
1. Vegeta's Full Throttle Fairy Tale

10:31 PM 9/2/2012

**Disclaimer: Dragon Ball Z is a property of Akira Toriyama, Toei Animation, and Shueisha.**

**Summary: When a lack of updates and an overly playful Goku drive Vegeta into temporary hiding within the bowels of Capsule Corp, he decides to take out his frustration on an old typewriter and come up with his own movie plotline. With a morbidly curious Bulma to referee, what kind of dastardly adventure will the prince come up with?**

**Part 1: "Vegeta Oujisama's Full-Throttle Fairy-Tale"**

* * *

"Hey Vegeta!...what are you doing with that typewriter and this is going to be one of those days, isn't it?" Bulma's spirited introduction upon poking her head into the prince's bedroom quickly deflated upon witnessing the sight within.

"Simply following where the muses take me." he continued to punch away at the keys while the sounds of the thunderstorm that had blanketed West City now for two days running provided the musical accompaniment to the old tech device Vegeta was using, "And as for why I'm not using one of the many computers you have available; we've been over this before. So the editing-goblin doesn't come by and alter what I've written while I'm asleep."

Bulma raised an eyebrow, "Editing-gobli-"

"-Turles." Vegeta said, speaking the name with the amount of distaste one would have when discussing curdled milk or an empty box of cookies that was left in the drawer instead of thrown away and thus leading on the next unlucky unfortunate to happen upon said box who too late discovers its dark and cavernous secret.

"Oh yeah."

"Also it's two months later and I still don't know the damn plot of that upcoming movie so the Great and Powerful Saiyajin no Ouji's taking matters into his own hands and pounding out his own storyline." he made a pair of fists while staring irritatedly at the ceiling.

"Huh. Yeah, that sounds more like it." Bulma sighed, looking away. She turned her attention back to Vegeta, "But, forgive me if I'm wrong, your highness."

"You are forgiven."

"..." Bulma frowned at him.

"Continue."

"Uh-HUH." she folded her arms, "Anyway, if I recall correctly, pretty much everything you've typed upon that typewriter has turned out to be nothing more than over-exaggerated, out-of-character wish-fulfillment-type fantasies."

"Hmm. While I can't exactly deny that claim-"

"-it's not a claim. It's fact."

"-I can, however, soothe your worries by letting you know that I have gone out of my way to approach this from the true cinematic standpoint of properly retaining accurate representations of the characters involved as the plot demands."

"As the plot demands, huh?" Bulma repeated, skeptical.

"Well if I didn't have any obstacles the whole thing would be over in about a page and a half now, wouldn't it? Where's the challenge in that?"

She looked around the room, "Speaking of "challenges"...?"

"I wouldn't know and seeing as the last time I saw Sugarcookie he was in that uncomfortable _"Let's punch Vegeta once and then run away laughing with excitement."_ mood right now and I'm perfectly happy at the moment to simply let him be."

"He's just bored. Son-kun doesn't know what to do with himself when he's bored."

Vegeta rolled his eyes.

"Besides, it's cute and completely harmless."

"You only say that because it's Muffin who's doing it. I've got a bruise, ya know." he tugged his sleeve up, revealing a barely visible injury.

"You should be happy Son-kun wants to play with you."

"There's got to be a better, saner way for him to express that." the ouji returned to typing.

"So!" she said, pulling up a chair, "In-character, eh?"

"Proof is in the pudding." he held out a pile of pages to her, which she took without reply.

"Alright." Bulma flipped it open to page one, "Let's see what you got!"

* * *

"Ah! What a haul! That was fun, wasn't it, Goku-san?" Chi-Chi clapped her hands together as her sandals flip-flopped against the graveled road. The 18 year old ox princess wore a red and purple patterned summer kimono that hid a slim yet athletic figure. Her waist-length dark hair was pulled up in a high ponytail using a decorative accessory. The look on her face was one of pure victory.

"Heh-heh~, I got to fight strong guys all day long! It was great!" her companion and childhood friend of the same age was a martial artist about a head taller than she with spiky midnight-blue hair and a long, fuzzy tail-also midnight-blue. Were it not for these physical characteristics-along with his voracious appetite-Son Goku could easily blend into a crowd. Slung over his back and rubbing up against the light-weight yellow-orange gi he wore was a big sack of money; the collective reward of countless fighters who had passed them on the main road where they'd stationed their _"Double or Nothing"_ sparring stand. With the amount they'd fetched today, it would be enough to feed Goku for a week.

_::Well, five to six days at least.::_ Chi-Chi reassured herself, though she couldn't help but feel a slight inkling of panic staking out in the back of her mind.

While as a child, Goku's unusually large appetite had been an adorable quirk, the Gyu Kingdom had found that it wasn't so cute a quirk when Goku's already enormous appetite grew along with Goku himself. Logically, it didn't make any sense. He had the outward appearance of any number of in-shape, leanly-muscled, martial artists you could find in the village, but when he ate...where did it all go? Did he really burn that much energy that fast? Even master scholar Gohan couldn't figure it out.

Not knowing why wasn't the problem, however. The fact was Gyu Kingdom was small. There was only so much food to go around and seeing how much of it went to keeping what some of the more irritated were calling _"The Princess' Pet"_ full was not sitting all that well. Chi-Chi had been suggested to try and lower Goku's portions down to that of a typical adult, but that only resulted in a sluggish, lethargic Goku who lay around half-passed-out from hunger. It wasn't until Chi-Chi had noticed the beginnings of a startling weight-loss that she promptly ditched the plan and enacted their current procedure, which, she might add, was working quite nicely, if only as a temporary fix. As much as Goku loved the idea of adventuring all day in search of strong guys to fight who would give them money to buy more food for Goku if he defeated them in battle...eventually the weather would get too cold to venture out, and it was possible that even before the annual snowstorms blanketed the area they might unknowingly pick that one wrong opponent who would be more than a sore loser. They were fighting and earning money from complete strangers, after all! Chi-Chi tried to shake the uneasy thoughts from her head. Eventually something would have to give. She couldn't boot Goku-san out of the kingdom! He was so sweet and naive and even though he had practically no libido he was still absolutely her favorite guy in the whole kingdom. She'd totally let him become her prince if he asked her. Goku of course, with his mind perpetually on either sparring or eating, never did think to ask.

There wasn't a single case like Goku anywhere in the village's medical books, and since Goku was an orphan there weren't any relatives around to ask. He'd been raised by a kindly old martial artist who had come by the then crying toddler in his travels one day. With no means of telling who had left the child behind, the elderly man had simply taken him home.

"Bakemono." Chi-Chi murmured. None of the more unusual aspects of Goku had reminded her of any of the type of monsters she'd heard about as a small child. As far as she was concerned, she didn't care what Goku was, she just wished for him to stay here with her.

As they approached the hilly slopes leading towards the outer gates of Gyu Kingdom, the both of them could tell, even from a distance in the ever-dimming evening light, that something was wrong.

There was a pair of men wearing strange armor and bearing a powerful ki angrily demanding to be let in.

Chi-Chi mentally cursed her kimono, "Goku-san!"

"Yup!" it was hard for him to wipe the smirk from his face despite this dangerous-looking situation. Two more guys to battle! It was like a bonus! He bounded across the hillside, sliding down towards the front gates with the sack full of coins still slung over his shoulder.

One of the heavily-armored men heard a thrushing sound in the grass and turned in time to be beaned across the side of the head with said sack. He hit the ground with an unceremonious thud.

"Ossu!" Goku happily greeted the other would-be-intruder, who had taken a few preliminary steps back. Goku tossed the sack to the side and crouched into a fighting position, "I'm Son Goku! Who're you?" he asked before lunging at his opponent as a full-fledged battle began to take place. His opponent was heavily blocking him, but Goku could sense a strength in both the newcomers that was unlike anyone else he'd fought today.

"We're here on behalf of the Saiyajin Kingdom-"

"-who?"

"-To announce a mandatory battle royale in honor of the heir to the throne."

"-what?"

"-The winner will receive a billion zeni."

"-huh?" Goku still wasn't overly interested.

"WAIT!"

The battle paused as both Goku and the overly-armored man whose helmet had come slightly askew turned to see Chi-Chi standing there with a stunned look on her face.

"Did you say...a BILLION zeni?" she looked at him, barely comprehending, "How is that even possible? I've never seen anyone with armor like yours before, how do we know this isn't just a scam?"

"If you refuse to participate, we've been given instructions to lay waste to whosever kingdom it is in question and take back whatever items may be deemed valuable to our rulers." he sneered down at her.

Chi-Chi narrowed her eyes, staring back at him, "Goku-sa."

Goku reached up and slapped the man upside the head, knocking his helmet overtop of his face and temporarily blocking his vision.

"AARGH!-you, AAGH!" he struggled before finally pulling the helmet back onto its appropriate area, "WHAT, may I ask, is the name of this charming little hole in the ground?"

"Gyu Kingdom, since you asked so nicely." she folded her arms, feeling very self-satisfied, "And actually, a billion zeni would sound really nice about now. Ne, Goku-san?" Chi-Chi smiled sweetly over at him.

"I could buy lotsa snacks with a billion zeni, huh, Chi-Chi?"

"More than you could ever imagine."

"Heh~" Goku's imagination wandered off as his tail flicked lightly to and fro behind him.

"We accept your challenge, but let it be known we don't do it under _"orders"_, but for personal interest." Chi-Chi spoke nonchalantly to the armored man, who was growing increasingly irritated the further along things went, "So? How do we get there?"

"The tournament beings in three weeks; a vehicle will be sent here to pick up any and all entrants."

"Very well then. Three weeks it is." she smiled as the man picked his unconscious fellow up, and, to Chi-Chi's surprise and Goku's curiosity, flew away.

"They-they did that without Kinto'un! SO COOL!" Goku gushed, "I, I wonder how you do that...?"

Chi-Chi could only stare up in shock, "I don't have a clue."

* * *

"You haven't shown up yet and that fact alone makes me suspicious." Bulma gazed up from the pile of papers she held in-front of her.

"I don't find it suspicious at all." Vegeta gave a shrug with a composed smirk on his face, "If you'll recall my appearances in the majority of the movies, I was never one to appear off-hand. No, my entrances call for a little more finesse than that. Nearly all of the movies in which I've appeared simply awaited that explosive entry into the storyline, the one where everyone is already in dire straights and they all turn upon hearing my smooth deep voice and shout _"Vegeta!"_ in amazement."

"Uh-huh." she sweatdropped.

"That's not going to happen here, of course, this being an Alternate Universe story, but I feel I should explain myself should you have any questions."

"Okay. I have one more then. What about Gohan?"

"What about Gohan?"

"The way his name was dropped earlier indicated he's an adult in your story, but that can't be if Son-kun and Chi-Chi are this young and seemingly haven't had sex."

"I'm pulling from doujinshi-logic."

"Pardon?"

"In doujins you can have an Alternate Universe where characters exist in particular roles at particular ages while not being related to those they otherwise would be and thus allow you the elbowroom you need for the theatre-play, or in this case, movie."

"Still not quite sure I get it."

Vegeta folded his arms, "The doujins where each of Kakarrotto's forms appears as his own individual character and you can somehow have base form, ssj1, 2, 3, and 4 standing together in the same room even though that's impossible in real life since it's all essentially the game guy."

"Ohhh. That." Bulma pondered out-loud, then chuckled, "Bad things tend to happen to you in those sorts of doujinshi." she grinned at him.

"Well they're not happening here!" he snapped, irritated and red in the face. Vegeta cleared his throat, "Gohan plays the part of a scholar in my script, but he isn't their son because Kakarrotto and Onna are in their late teens."

"You should've mentioned that earlier."

Vegeta stared back at her sourly.

"Aw relax, relax." Bulma smiled, patting him on the back and turning the page.

* * *

It looked like a tornado had blown through. The gates outside the village had done a good job of hiding it, but once Chi-Chi and Goku had let themselves inside, they saw just how obvious it was that the two men they'd just disposed of had already paid the village's interior a visit. The main roads were littered with unconscious and injured warriors alongside the many emergency response teams who were rapidly trying to treat their wounds.

"Chi-Chi!" the Ox King's voice resounded as he ran up to her, a giant in his own right. He had thrown some old armor over his casual clothes and his glasses were askew with the left frame now cracked, "I'm so relieved you're alright!"

"Yeah I'm...I'm fine.." her mind was preoccupied by the destruction.

"Those guys I just fought, they did do this?" Goku asked.

Ox King nodded, "They demanded we send our strongest fighters to participate in some kind of tournament. We'd never heard of these guys before. They were really rude and pushy about it that no one wanted to volunteer, so we said no. That's when they attacked."

"We were able to kick them out and lock the gates behind them, but just barely." Tenshinhan, now with his arm in a sling, approached the group.

"Ohhh. If we hadn't been gone all day..." Chi-Chi trailed off.

"We could've stopped them a lot sooner, yeah."

She glowered at him for a moment, then let out a bitter sigh.

"Where were you, anyway?" Ox King asked her, concerned.

Chi-Chi flinched. Her eyes lingered on the sack of coins, "We won this fairly." she said as Goku set the sack down and opened it up.

"Whoa! That's incredible!" Ox King's gasped.

"It's probably enough to cover the damage to the village." she frowned as Goku's attention suddenly jumped at her, "I'm sorry. What are we gonna do? Just leave it like this?"

"It's alright, really." he smiled sadly back at Chi-Chi, which only succeeded in bring her down further, "I'm gonna go help out, kay?" Goku motioned over to where Kuririn and Yamcha were working to put a house back together.

"Sure. Go ahead."

"You're kidding?! You ran into them on your way back and creamed 'um?" Kuririn gawked as he hammered a door while Goku held it in place.

"Uhn! They were pretty strong, and I think they were holding back, but I could take 'um no problem." Goku smiled, his tail wafting behind him. A serious expression crossed his face, " 'N now that I know they did all this bad stuff to my home, I'm happy I'm gonna enter their tournament thing."

"But you don't even know where this Saiyajin Kingdom place is." Yamcha interjected as he fit a window in place, "Bulma went through all the maps in the entire library and she couldn't find a single one that even mentioned _"saiyajin"_."

"Maybe it used to be called something else, and they just changed the name." Kuririn thought out-loud.

Yamcha frowned, "If that's the case then it could be anywhere."

"Hmm.." Goku pouted as he climbed up onto Kinto'un. The fluffy yellow cloud hovered up near the roof, where Goku spotted a bowling-ball-sized hole, "Uwehh! There is damage everywhere!"

"What were we supposed to do about it? They could fly!" Juuhachigou exclaimed from inside the house as she stared up at Goku from the other side of the hole, "And not like what you're doing either."

"I know, I saw 'um." Goku nodded, then made a pair of fists while looking off into the distance, "I need to learn how to do that!"

"Well if anyone can, it's probably you." Kuririn thought out-loud.

"They are coming back in three weeks, right? How 'bout we all train together and you can come with me?"

Kuririn laughed nervously, "Sorry Goku, those guys were crazy strong. There's no way I could hold up against them."

The front door swung open, "It's a BILLION zeni, Kuririn. We're going." Juuhachigou bluntly stated.

"YAY!" Goku cheered only to have Juuhachigou point at him.

"Don't."

"Unnn." Goku pouted.

"What about you, Yamcha?" Kuririn asked, feeling a bit morbid now that he'd been ordered to go along, "Are you gonna come with us too?"

"Ah-well, you see...you know my luck with first rounds isn't all that great and I know Bulma's not going to be entering and with the village like this it'd be really awful of me to leave her behind and Tenshinhan's gotta have somebody besides Gohan and Piccolo to help him keep the peace so..."

"Son-kun!" a pair of hands reached out and clasped Goku's in theirs, "I heard you were back! We did a pretty good job taking care of those guys earlier, but I wish you'd been here to help; I did hear you got a chance at them before they left though." Bulma beamed up at him.

"Heh-heh~ even though I was tired I still had fun fightin' um." he smiled back.

"So!" she let go, "What are you guys up to?"

"All of us are going to enter that tournament of theirs to win the money." Juuhachigou replied, motioning to the four of them.

Yamcha froze, "Ah-"

"Really? That's really brave of you." Bulma folded her arms, impressed.

Kuririn let out a barely-disguised panicky laugh, "Yeah, brave."

Bulma strode up to Yamcha and gave him a playful punch to the shoulder, "You gonna show those jerks who's boss, huh?"

"Y-yeah? I guess I am?"

She paused, "Why are you ending everything with a question mark?"

"Am I? I didn't notice? Hahaha?"

"Aw, no need to worry, Yamcha. It'll be fun!" Goku was already starting to get excited. An unknown tournament facing really strong guys and a chance to win more than enough money to fix the remaining damage done to the village and to grow and buy enough food to keep himself regularly fed sounded great.

"Fun. Right." Yamcha returned to his work, a little worse for wear, "Go team."

* * *

"Vejita, you seem tense. Is there anything I can do?"

"Huh?" picked out of his train of thought, the saiyajin prince kept his eyes on the moonlight scenery just outside the open window a moment longer, even though his attention had fled from it at the interruption behind him. His muscular build and dark chocolate flame hair along with his typically over-confident attitude that occasionally clouded his natural intelligence made for an imposing figure. This evening however had left the prince in a rather melancholic mood.

"Might I pick your brain?" Brolli walked up to him.

"That sounds uncomfortably messy." Vegeta frowned, waving a hand in the air, "I decline."

This time it was Brolli's turn to pout, "Vejita..." the guard was a good 60cm taller than Vegeta and easily one of the tallest saiyajin in the royal guard. Every time Vegeta spoke with him he felt like he was talking more at Brolli's stomach than to Brolli himself. As looks went, the guard was brawny, but his sheer height slimmed that a bit; he wasn't a rock like Nappa was. Brolli's medium-length dark green hair flowed just below his shoulders with bangs framing his surprisingly kind, gentle face. Vegeta would place the two of them in league with one another in terms of attractiveness, but as they weren't competing against each other for the heart of some third person, that didn't really matter, "..you know, it's no good for you to brood like this. There are far more..satisfying ways to spend your spare time." his voice dropped to a whisper.

The ouji flinched.

"Vegeta-sa~n!" the door to the prince's private chambers swung open with a heavy thunk, "Interesting developments have occurred!" Turles smirked widely.

If looks could kill, the intense, heavily-controlled rage burning on Brolli's face would have transformed Turles into a corpse before he even had a chance to finish that initial sentence. Everything about the sneaky, double-entendre-loving trouble-maker irritated Brolli. Turles' personality was like a tossed-salad of pet peeves to him, and what was worse was how the other guard consistently picked Vegeta out as one of his favorite targets to tease. With spiky, logic-defying hair a similar, yet not identical shade to Vegeta's, Turles stood at a height precisely between that of Vegeta's more petite stature and Brolli's massive tallness. Brolli would occasionally metaphor that this was a visual representation of the fact that Turles continuously seemed to stand in his way when it came to attempting to spend quality private time with the prince. Brolli often wondered why Turles was in the royal guard at all; he never followed instructions, broke the rules for his own entertainment, and increasingly upset a personally-chosen select group of targets. As far as Brolli was aware, that unlucky group included the prince, himself, and another fellow guard with long spiky hair named Raditz who stood at average saiyajin height and was diametrically opposed to Turles when it came to following the rules. Brolli would occasionally silently cheer Raditz on in hopes of him finally snapping and disposing of Turles so that he, Brolli, could be rid of the space pirate without having a murder on his conscience.

"I'm listening." Vegeta watched him skeptically as he folded his arms and leaned back against the wall, away from Brolli.

"First, the boring part, but trust me, there's a pay off. All the soldiers the king sent out to those various villages returned unscathed,"

"As expected."

"with a single exception." Turles held up a pointer finger, "The two men sent to recruit invitees from Gyu Kingdom are at the intensive care ward. Somebody beat them to a pulp, and they won't say who."

Curiosity sparked in Vegeta's eyes as he slowly unfolded his arms, "They won't say who?" he repeated, stunned.

"It had to be someone incredibly strong, maybe even stronger than you."

"Impossible!" Vegeta snapped, disgusted at this last part, yet intrigued by the former.

Brolli held his tongue, he was stronger than Vegeta, but it wasn't something he advertised as to protect the ouji's fragile ego.

"Not only that, the men said this person is going to participate in the tournament. If they win you'll get to fight them in the final round, so you better make sure you train plenty hard until then."

"Hmph. You can count on that even if it weren't for such news. The saiyajin no ouji does not slack off." Vegeta boasted.

"I'm aware." Turles smirked back.

"In fact, I should be sleeping by now or I'll never be sharp enough to make my morning itinerary. I want the both of you out of here and back in your own quarters now."

Brolli was grief-stricken. Turles looked like a pleased kitty. Vegeta ignored the both of their reactions and physically motioned for them to leave, then closed and locked the door behind them upon their departure.

A single person strong enough to take down two of the saiyajin kingdom's fully-armored elite soldiers; it must have been an exquisite sight. Vegeta closed his eyes. Yes, this would have to be a warrior with unbridled strength, artful grace, and a high level of intellect behind immensely complex fighting techniques. The prince went to bed dreaming of going up against this magnificent mystery fighter.

* * *

"Huuh! Huuh! Huuh!" Goku breathed heavily as he continued his morning laps around the outskirts of the village, Kinto'un flying beside him. The sun had barely breeched the horizon and the remnants of the past night were still visible in the sky. He'd thrown on a clean gi along with his wristbands, yet his feet were suspiciously bare.

"Mmphmh?" Kinto'un tilted towards him inquisitively.

"It's cuz it's easier to practice stuff like this without my shoes." was Goku's reply. He slowed down a bit and did a hop-jump into the air before letting out a small ki blast with his feet. The blast pushed him up higher and allowed him to temporarily levitate before gravity took its hold and he dropped back to the ground.

"Mph!"

"Heh-heh~ yeah I know." he grinned back at the cloud, "I know it's not quite the same thing, but I bet if I could see them use that technique a couple more times I could figure it out."

"Mmphmphhm?"

"No way! Even if I really do learn how to fly, there is no way I would forget 'bout Kinto'un or not ride on him anymore!" the suggestion upset him. Goku skidded to a halt and looked back at Kinto'un, concerned, before climbing up on-top of the cloud and giving it a hug from on-top, "That'd be so mean I'd never do somethin' like that."

"Mphmm. Mmph phhh mph."

Goku rolled over onto his back to gaze up at the sky, his tail wafting lightly as it hung over the side of Kinto'un, "Weh..."

Something heavy came down to playfully tap him on the belly.

"Oop!" Goku sat up to see Chi-Chi standing there holding nyoi-bo.

"Don't feel so down, Kaguya-hime, your escorts have arrived to take you back to the moon!"

"Huh?" he blinked at her, smiling and confused.

"I'm joking of course, Goku-sa." Chi-Chi spun nyoi-bo about, then tossed it to him. He caught the bo staff with no trouble.

"I do not understand." he tilted his head a bit.

"For someone named after a character from a fairytale...ah, it is Goku-san after all so he probably wouldn't know unless it was something interesting to him." she thought out-loud to herself.

"I'll listen."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, a little skeptical, "...Okay. Mukashi mukashi, a long long time ago there was an elderly bamboo cutter who discovered a shining stalk of bamboo in the dead of night. Inside he found a baby girl with hair that glowed in the light of the moon. The old man took her back home where he and his wife raised her as their own. The couple experienced much good fortune from then on and the family became prosperous and happy." Chi-Chi began. Goku could tell she was reciting partly from something she had read somewhere, "As she grew, she became extraordinarily beautiful and gained many unwanted suitors who she successfully got rid of by thinking up impossible requests of them in exchange for her hand. She was such an unusual beauty that even the emperor fell for her, but Kaguya had no interest even in him despite his repeated attempts to court her. Time passed and one hot summer's night she tearfully revealed her true nature to her adoptive parents, _"I'm not of this country. I am not even from this planet. I have come from the Kingdom of the Moon, sent to this place for my own protection, and as its princess, soon my escorts will arrive to take me back to my true home."_ The old man and old woman were grief-stricken and the emperor posted guards to prevent anyone from stealing Kaguya away from the home and the friends and family she had grown to love. His effort was in vein as her escorts were able to enter anyway, blinding the guards with their moonlight. Before they could reach her, she drank a sip of

an immortality elixir and secretly handed off the bottle to the emperor.

The escorts reached her, and Kaguya, defeated and with a heavy heart, went with them. As they left, one of the escorts placed a feathered robe over her shoulders and by doing so magically erased all of her feelings towards the people of Earth. The old couple soon grew ill and the emperor, heartbroken, destroyed the remaining elixir instead of drinking from it, as he could not bear to live forever if they were unable to ever meet again."

"That's so sad."

"Not all fairytales end happily ya know."

"You don't gotta worry, Chi-Chi, I'm not from the moon. At least, I don't think I am. Even if I was, I wouldn't let 'um take me away; I'd beat 'um up instead!" Goku grinned, pointing a thumb at himself.

Chi-Chi laughed at this, "Yeah, I guess you would."

"They're here."

Goku and Chi-Chi turned to see Piccolo standing there, looking a little worse for wear.

"Piccolololo~, yo!" Goku waved to him, "Are you gonna tell me a story too?" he watched Piccolo curiously.

"What? No! They really are here, though, they sent a different pair of soldiers from before."

"I must've really creamed the old ones, huh? They sent stronger guys?" Goku asked, entertained.

"I...would almost prefer the previous pair."

"Why's that?" Chi-Chi placed a hand on her hips.

Piccolo spun around, his cape flowing behind him, "Follow me. You'll see."

Goku opened his mouth excitedly.

"That was an accident. Do not rhyme back at me."

Instead Goku pouted, leaning forward on Kinto'un as the cloud floated on after Piccolo, Chi-Chi striding beside him.

"I would, really, appreciate it, if you'd, both sit down." Gohan repeatedly dodged the various items in the waiting room that were being tossed around not out of violence, but rampant curiosity.

"WHOA! Look at this!"

"It's an ice cream maker! Make mine picante!"

"That's not an ice cream maker!" Gohan exclaimed, "It's a blender!"

Lifting up the lid to the blender, the first guard dropped random items off of Gohan's desk inside, than pressed start before Gohan could reach them. Rubbing his hands together, the second guard suddenly had an empty sugarcone in his hands which he held underneath the blender's spout. To Gohan's disbelief, a green ice cream poured out and into the cone.

"Mmm~ delicious!"

"W-what?" Gohan stammered, baffled.

"Me next!" the guards switched places, "I want a fudgy wudgy!"

"That's impossible!" Gohan exclaimed.

"Comin' right up!" the second guard pressed a button on the blender labeled _"fudgy wudgy"_, which sat beside another that read _"orange creamsicle"_. Out of the spout popped a fully formed chocolate ice cream pop complete with wooden stick stuck into the bottom.

"How refreshing!"

"I..ah...wh...huh..." Gohan just stood there with his brain half-broken from the completely logic-defying sight he was witnessing.

The door to the study opened to reveal Piccolo standing there with Goku and Chi-Chi on either side of him.

"PICCOLO-SAN!" Gohan ran up to him, "I, you, THEY, HOW?"

"Damn. I knew I shouldn't have left you alone with them." Piccolo sighed, rubbing his temples, "You alright, Gohan?"

"Buh...no, no I don't think I am. I just need some rest is all." he nervously adjusted the frames of his glasses.

"Ossu!" Goku greeted the two guards, who hadn't realized more guests were there until Goku had done so, "I'm Son Goku! Who're you?"

"Vejitto."

"Gogeta." they both responded in unison, boggling Goku's ears.

Vejitto tapped himself on the chest, "We're with the Saiyajin Kingdom's royal guards and we're here to pick up anyone who's entering the tournament."

Chi-Chi grabbed a protective hold of one of Goku's hands, confusing him. Placed up against these reality-bending loose-cannons made Goku's own brand of silliness adorable by comparison.

"How many contestants are we here for?" Gogeta asked.

Himself, Kuririn, Yamcha, Juuhachigou, "Four."

"Five!" Chi-Chi announced, raising her hand.

"Really?" Goku grinned at her.

"Ox King's not going to like this, Chi-Chi." Piccolo warned, wary.

"He'll be fine. Tousan's a big guy; he can take care of himself."

"So where's the other three?"

"Still sleeping I guess." Chi-Chi shrugged.

Vejitto pulled a rooster out from behind his back with one hand and a trumpet with the other, "Well then, let's go wake some people up!"

"Someone's gonna pay for that. I just haven't decided who yet." Juuhachigou rubbed her ears as she, a bed-headed Yamcha, and a dizzy Kuririn stood there in a row.

An already wide-awake-thanks to caffeine-Bulma was hurriedly dashing around inspecting the vehicle expected to take the contestants to their destination. She snapped photos as she went while simultaneously taking notes about the aircraft.

"This is gonna take us there, huh?" Goku had put his boots on in the meantime and now stood there in curious excitement.

"And you two know how to fly this thing, huh?" Chi-Chi motioned to Vejitto and Gogeta, uncertain.

"No need to doubt us, ma'am. We're professionals!" Gogeta gave her a thumbs-up.

"We've got years of experience that keeps us safe." Vejitto beat a hand against his chest.

"Oh...kay..."

Swinging the door to the ship open, Gogeta stood beside it, "All aboard!"

Goku hopped in, "Wow! It's got a roof-window!"

"What?" Chi-Chi stepped in after him and let out a small gasp upon seeing the skylight above them. Porthole-type windows sat in rows on the sides of the ship, "Oh!"

Juuhachigou sat down in the nearest available seat and Kuririn sat down beside her.

Yamcha let out a yawn as he just collapsed on a nearby empty bench-seat, half-passing out on contact.

As Goku and Chi-Chi sat down, the door shut behind them. Goku peered out the porthole window to wave to everyone as the ship began to lift upward. Bulma, Gohan, and Piccolo among others waved back, each to varying degrees.

Once they were out of eyeshot, Goku sat back in his seat and gazed up at the sky-roof once more. Now this was an adventure! He couldn't keep the grin off his face, "It's gonna be fun!" he pumped his fists in the air.

Chi-Chi sighed, still taking in their surroundings, "I hope so."

They'd been riding for at least fifteen minutes and Chi-Chi couldn't help rid herself of a disquieting feeling. She wasn't exactly sure what it was, but it was bothering her. Something wasn't right.

"We haven't gone down."

"Huh?" she looked over at Goku, who only smiled back at her.

"I mean, we haven't leveled out yet; if I was riding Kinto'un instead of this thing, I'd be really cold by now, unless I was wearing my winter clothes I guess." he nodded, "Is it cold where we're going?" Goku asked the pilots.

"Only in parts." Vejitto replied.

"And only sometimes." Gogeta added.

"Oh."

Goku turned back to face Chi-Chi, "I bet it's a sky island!"

"Impossible! There is no such thing!"

"We're here!" Gogeta announced, "Well, not here as in there, but you can see there from here."

Chi-Chi turned her attention to the front windows. Her jaw slackened. It was indeed a humongous island floating in the sky. She could just barely make out the city skyline in the distance, along with the silhouette of a massively complex, intimidating castle.

Yamcha and Kuririn were just as shocked and stunned as Chi-Chi. Juuhachigou was mildly interested. Goku's excitement was still plastered across his face and growing.

"Ladies and gentlemen, señors and señoritas, minna, we are proud to introduce you to the Saiyajin Kingdom!" Vejitto motioned to the world floating in the sky before them as it grew ever closer.

"Wow..." Goku trailed off, "So COOL!"

"Heh-heh." Vejitto and Gogeta grinned back at him.

"Make sure your seatbelts are fastened! Else you're in for a bumpy landing." Gogeta nodded wisely.

"'Kay~!" Goku cheerfully replied, doing so.

Though a little rough, the landing wasn't nearly that bad. Looking around, Kuririn could tell they'd actually landed in what appeared to be a private airport. There were at least half a dozen other ships, empty, parked across the way.

"Aw, last ones back?" Gogeta frowned.

"Not so bad." Vejitto folded his arms, "Though first would be worst."

"And second'd be best."

"And third is the one with the hairy chest."

"How manly!"

"It has been passed down the line through generations."

"What are you talking about?" Yamcha asked, completely baffled.

"If you have to ask, you'll never know."

"Just let out of the damn car. Or plane. Or whatever this thing is." Juuhachigou bluntly stated.

"Rrrrogerrr!" Gogeta rolled his r's as he gave her a salute. Both fusions undid their seatbelts and made for the door while their passengers got up to follow them.

What greeted the visitors was a light, cool spring breeze quite different than the intense summer heat back home.

"I guess the seasons would be different up here." Kuririn decided.

"Not to mention we don't know how far we actually traveled." Yamcha added to it.

"True." at this Kuririn felt a pang of anxiety. They could be halfway around the world by now for all he knew.

"This way!"

"Follow us!"

The two soldiers were motioning their small audience towards the first of several outer gates that would eventually take them to the castle.

Chi-Chi felt nauseous just looking at it, and she wasn't actually on the grounds themselves yet. It was the sort of place that would be easy to get lost in, or easy to lose someone else in. She looked back over at Goku, who was already emotionally lost in the vastness of the place. He could sense powerful ki's inside the castle, she could tell just by the expression on his face.

"We're sad to say this is where we have to leave you off." Gogeta shrugged.

"So sad, but not a goodbye, we'll see you all later." Vejitto waved to them.

"Wait, what?" Kuririn turned only to see both of them had vanished from sight.

The first set of gates, followed by the second, third, and fourth, all slowly opened before them. Each area had its own set of grounds with different types of flora growing within. While everyone else was captivated by the setting at large, Goku found his attention drawn to the enormously-sized fruits and vegetables that hung from the trees and sprouted from the ground. Never in his life had he seen food that size. His stomach rumbled. The fifth and final gate opened to reveal their first glimpse of the castle's interior and a huge, cavernous waiting area.

"Ah, well, that explains it." a tall figure stepped out of the shadows and into the hall, his deep blue cape flowing behind him. This man wore dark armor in a more ceremonial style than the soldiers they had met earlier, his hair a lighter shade than his son's, yet in the same familiar style. He also sported facial hair in the form of a mustache and beard, both cut short. Something long and fuzzy, identical in shade to his hair, was wrapped around his waist.

Chi-Chi felt her heart in her throat, she knew what it was, _::This_ _can't be happening.::_

"Though I have to admit, I'm quite surprised to find a fellow saiyajin living that far away. How do you keep yourself fed?"

"You're not his dad, are you?!" Chi-Chi blurted out, worried.

"What?! NO!" King Bejito eyeballed her, "He doesn't look a thing like me or my wife for one and as far as I'm aware I've only got two sons and this young man is neither of them."

"Uh-ohh."

Juuhachigou leaned over at her, "Hey, you feeling alright? You seem kinda jumpy."

"I'm fine. Really." Chi-Chi gave a quick light laugh, embarrassed now.

"Chi-Chi read somethin' in a book one time and she thought I was the moon princess." Goku pointed to himself.

"..." Juuhachigou stared over at him blandly, "Yeah, I'm gonna stop it right there." she felt a headache coming on.

"But I'm not because my hair doesn't glow in the dark."

"Goku, let it drop."

"Let what drop?"

"Aren't we kind of missing a huge point here?" Yamcha spoke up, "That guy over there was talking like he's the same as Goku. So maybe he knows what Goku is."

"Were you not listening? I already said he's a saiyajin." the king responded, folding his arms, "We are a proud warrior race whose kingdom extends across this entire island."

"So...I came from here?" Goku motioned to the area around them.

"Most likely, though for all I know you were born somewhere else. You can search for your birth records some other time, that isn't why I've brought you all here. We've got a tournament set to begin at dawn, and you're all going to take part I presume?"

"Um, and the prize money?" Kuririn nervously inquired.

"Yes, yes. If you win, the money is yours. However, the champion of the tournament will have to face one more challenger before they can collect their winnings."

"Oh..no, it's not you is it?"

"BWAHAHAHA!" he let out a laugh from his gut, "Ah, no. It's someone far more vicious than I; the heir to my kingdom and high prince-my older son. No one is deadlier. His skills and power are beyond anything ever seen in the history of the saiyajin people. With his keen wit, massive intellect, and raw talent, there's little even the most vested warrior could do against-"

* * *

"-OW." Vegeta said, mostly for effect as he rubbed his side after having Bulma jab him with her elbow, "What? It's true."

"Doesn't mean you have to prattle on like that. Bad enough you do that in reality. It doesn't mean people want to hear your characters go on about how awesome you are for paragraphs on end." she pointed out, irritated.

"It's my father. He would brag about me."

"Even so."

The ouji rubbed his side once more, even though what Bulma had done hadn't actually hurt him, then turned his attention back to the typewriter and continued on.

* * *

"-his killer magnetism." the king finished.

"Sounds fun!" Goku grinned widely.

At this Bejito was stumped, "Fun?"

"I hope he's really as strong as you say; those guys I fought the other day were easy to beat."

The king laughed at this, "You're a cheeky one, aren't you? I wonder how my son's going to take this; he's been very curious about who it was that disposed of those guards. Neither of them would say who it was who defeated them, I can see why. Now, let's get some food in you; I'm going to need everyone at the top of their game for tomorrow."

"Why are you having a tournament anyway? And if your kingdom's full of fighters, why would you need to search for more?" Chi-Chi asked, curious.

Bejito frowned, "The prince has been rather lost lately. He needs a challenge to snap him out of it, so I'm providing one. There isn't anything more you need to know."

* * *

"UWAAIIII!" Goku could scarcely believe it. The room before him was like something out of a dream; food everywhere. The long table held huge portions of food from all the food groups, some of them at sizes he'd never seen before today.

Likewise, the rest of the group was a bit overwhelmed. There was no way they could finish all that food the way Goku could.

"I guess this does explain a lot." Kuririn murmured as he watched Goku dig in with a ravenous intent to the food. His childhood friend was eating with the sort of reckless, guiltless abandon Kuririn hadn't seen for a while, at least since before Goku's appetite began to be a problem for the Gyu Kingdom.

"He'll come back home with us when this is over, right?" Chi-Chi said, unsure if she were talking to Kuririn or more to herself, "Goku-san wouldn't leave his treasured friends and family so easily, right?"

"A world full of warriors to spar against and enough food to keep himself regularly full and healthy? I don't see why he'd want to stay here." Juuhachigou sarcastically quipped.

Chi-Chi shot her a glare, "That's not nice! I don't want to lose Goku-san just as much as you wouldn't want to lose Kuririn!"

"Somehow I don't think we're going to be propositioned by a floating island full of short bald noseless men anytime soon." Juuhachigou responded.

"Hey! I...hey!" Kuririn stammered, trying to pick out exactly what part of all that was insulting to him.

A little gasp came from across the room. They turned back to Goku, who was sitting there in-front of a now near-empty table. He stumbled out of his chair and to his feet, his eyes watery.

"Goku-sa!" Chi-Chi ran over to him, "Are you ok? Did you eat too fast? Is there something caught in your throat?"

"I'm full." he looked over at her with wide eyes. They weren't tears of pain, they were tears of happiness.

"..." she stared back at Goku, frightened before wrapping her arms around him, "I'll stay here with you then!"

"Huh?" Goku blinked, befuddled.

"You can't do that, Chi-Chi! What about the kingdom we all came from!?" Yamcha exclaimed, "Plus your family!"

"Huh?" Goku's confusion grew. He wasn't trying very hard to figure out what was going on; his body felt so wonderful with his belly full. He wished the tournament was starting now instead of tomorrow. There wasn't anything he wanted now more than to test out all his body at full power. It felt so good, "Chi-Chi, I wanna go do some warm-ups now."

"What? Yeah, sure." she let go of him and watched as Goku dashed across the room and began experimenting with a few sit-ups.

It really did feel wonderful. This was the right amount of food. He felt like he could take on the entire island and win, "How am I gonna sleep now? Hey you guys! What about the other contestants from the other villages? You think they'd wanna spar with me as a warm-up?"

"They're probably sleeping, which if we hadn't been stuck with such ridiculous escorts we would be too. Even if they weren't, sparring with them would be a terrible idea; it'd reveal your weaknesses to them and give them time to strategize against you." Juuhachigou shook her head.

"But I do not have any weaknesses." Goku said innocently, "'cept maybe my tail. It still weakens me somethin' awful when it gets squeezed." his tail flicked about behind him.

"You don't say that sort of thing out-loud! You're lucky they're not here to hear that!" she exclaimed.

"Goku-san..." Chi-Chi covered her face with her palms.

* * *

_He's a saiyajin._

_What?_

_The one who took down those guards. I don't blame them for not revealing it earlier. He's a peasant, a third class. It would be humiliating for them to admit a commoner took them down._

_Which means that, for a peasant, he's outrageously strong._

_For any saiyajin he's outrageously strong; but of course, not nearly as powerful as you or I. At least, I don't suspect it._

Vegeta found himself sneaking around the castle at night for the first time in years. His father had left the situation on such a cliffhanger that he couldn't help himself. He had to catch a glimpse of this long-lost member of the kingdom, this peasant with unfathomable power.

And so here he found himself in the guest hall, breaking easily half a dozen rules. The ouji bent down to the door whose location he'd threatened out of the guards and the used the key he'd stolen from the storage closet to open the door before slipping inside in the dead of night.

Fast asleep, spread out on his back, and letting out little gurgling snores was a type-3 saiyajin peasant with midnight blue hair and his tail hanging dangerously over the side of the bed. How reckless! Anyone could come along and with a simple flick of the wrist this supposed monster would be reduced to nothing.

Vegeta did admit he kind of wanted to try it, as childish as he thought it to be. Though he himself had long trained his own tail, it was quite obvious from the way this saiyajin slept that he didn't treat his own quite the same way, if at all. The prince instead peered down to get a closer look at the saiyajin's face. Cute, but easily a dime a dozen among peasants. There were so many saiyajin peasants of this build and hair that it was actually rumored that the legendary super saiyajin from hundreds of years ago was a type-3 and due to that alone many saiyajin women had clamored to procreate with him; hence, the distant future which was now today had lots of babies that looked like this. That was only a rumor though, after all. Vegeta sighed. He was hoping that even though it was just another person from his kingdom that it would be someone more unique than this. The hair-color was the only twist here; the only others he knew of who had this shade of blue hair were Raditz and Raditz's mother. Neither of them were type-3...though Raditz's father was. Vegeta wondered if he would see eyes that mirrored Bardock's when the saiyajin opened them. The prince was wrong. Those were not Bardock's eyes. In-fact, they were a lot like Turles', only instead of a mischievous glint these eyes held a vague foggy haze.

"Ano..." Goku uncomfortably spoke up, and by doing so broke the spell.

Vegeta instantly leapt back, having realized exactly what he'd been doing and how close he'd been. Oh culinary arts! He'd been practically on-top of that complete stranger! With only the bed-sheets between them!

Goku sat up, watching this intruder with the immensely powerful ki signature.

"This is a dream! You're still asleep." Vegeta thought up on the fly, _::Who_ _would believe that!? Idiot!::_ he mentally kicked himself.

"Can we go dream-sparring then?"

_::He bought it!::_ Vegeta was struck somewhere between being relieved and appalled. At least he'd successfully switched topics. The horrific mental image appeared in his head of him introducing himself while still atop the other saiyajin.

_:::Hi, I'm Prince Vegeta Oujisama. Welcome to the royal castle. You may notice it's the middle of the night, your formerly locked door is ajar, and I'm laying on-top of you in what could be misconstrued as non-platonic maneuver while you slept in your bed even though you and I are total strangers to each other, but hey, nice to meet you! What's your favorite awkward thing to do at 2am, seeing as you already know what mine is.::: _"Ohhhhh.." the ouji groaned, his face flushing.

Meanwhile, outside Vegeta's imagination, Goku was already putting his gi back on over his boxer shorts and tank top. He pulled his boots on and hopped to his feet.

"OK! Let's go!" Goku announced.

"Whuh?" Vegeta's attention returned to reality and he grimaced at the loud and unflattering yellow-orange martial arts uniform the other saiyajin wore, "That's what you're going to fight in tomorrow?"

"Uhn!"

_::Oh my head, adorable-sounding affirmative noises in place of "yes". He's going to be destroyed out there.::_ the prince grimaced. And unlike Turles' smooth-talking and the perpetual tough-guy tones of Bardock's take on the type-3 saiyajin voice, this guy was randomly jumping up an octave for barely half a beat while he was talking; like a squeaky shoe, "You're not doing that on purpose, are you?"

"Not doing what on purpose?"

Vegeta momentarily cringed on the _"what"_, which was where the squeak popped out this time. Depending on if one liked the person or not, this was either going to be a heart-melting cute-type character quirk or a pet peeve irritating enough where this saiyajin wasn't going to walk away from the tournament tomorrow with his voice-box still attached.

"Are we gonna spar now?"

"I didn't say anything about that!"

"I know, I did." Goku paused, "So can we? And now that I think 'bout it, I'm pretty sure I'm not dreaming. See? I can pinch myself and it hurts!" he tested it out on his cheek, "Heh-heh. Oh! I'm Son Goku." he switched gears and held out his hand to shake Vegeta's gloved one.

"Vegeta Oujisama." he replied without thinking.

"You look a lot like the guy who welcomed us, only shorter, and without any moostache or beard."

"I'm his son."

"OH! He said he had two. Yeah, yeah, you look a lot more like him that I do."

"I wouldn't expect you to." the prince sweatdropped.

"So that means..."

"I'm the prince."

"Neat! Are you checking in on everybody to make sure they're sleepin' ok? That's nice 'a you..and kinda weird, but maybe it is just because I'm not used to this place."

"I don't go around checking on guests at night, this was...this is very awkward."

"I'LL SAY." Goku exclaimed, not offended or anything, just baffled, "It is not every night I wake up with somebody I've never met in my bed watchin' me sleep."

"That's...not what I was doing...honest..." even though this didn't seem to matter nearly as much as it should to Goku, it was still heaving heaps of discomfort onto Vegeta, "...I was inspecting you...since..since you beat up those guards and no one would say who did it so I wanted to see and...I do realize I could have gotten a regular look at you regularly in the daylight during the tournament which would be far, far less creepy than this is feeling, so..."

"Can we spar now?"

"Are you mad!? It's the middle of the night! I'll fight you tomorrow IF you happen to be lucky enough to make it past all those competitors and win the tournament. I'M the one you fight in the final round."

"You must be really strong then!"

Vegeta smirked. This was something he could handle, "Now, I don't like to go about tooting my own horn-" was a vicious lie.

"-you've got a horn?"

"I-" Vegeta felt like he'd been smacked with a brick of befuddlement, "You're...something else, aren't you?"

Goku gave a genuine smile back at him.

The prince had to spin around so he faced the door instead of Goku, _::ARGH! That was so damn cute! It's like my chest is going to explode! He's going to be annihilated in the first round!::_ he felt ill at the thought, "I'll be going now."

"Oh. Ohkay. G'night!" Goku chimed in from his bed.

Vegeta trudged out of the room, "Yeah, goodnight." he carefully shut the door behind him and silently began to sneak back to the royal chambers.

* * *

12:55 AM 9/7/2012

**~*End of Part 1*~**


	2. Tournament Battles Aboard the Sky Island

4:27 PM 9/7/2012

**Disclaimer: Dragon Ball Z is a property of Akira Toriyama, Toei Animation, and Shueisha**

**Summary: When a lack of updates and an overly playful Goku drive Vegeta into temporary hiding within the bowels of Capsule Corp, he decides to take out his frustration on an old typewriter and come up with his own movie plotline. With a morbidly curious Bulma to referee, what kind of dastardly adventure will the prince come up with?**

**Part 2: "Tournament Time: Battles Aboard the Sky Island"**

* * *

Vegeta Oujisama did not sleep well that night. And really, how does anyone sleep at all after coming back from something that level of awkward? He considered himself incredibly lucky that this "Son Goku" had taken it in stride. So many kinds of terrible rumors could've erupted had Goku taken this up with the authorities. Besides! Vegeta found the false situation in such bad taste. He was the saiyajin no ouji after all, and more than attractive enough to will any prospectives into his own chambers. He didn't go taking such things; **they** came to seek him out willingly.

At least, that's how his ego put it.

The prince completed donning his armor and left the room, still in kind of a semi-funk. He made it halfway down the hall before knocking on the door to one of the nearby rooms.

The door opened a crack before the person inside recognized Vegeta and swung it wide, "Oniichan! You look terrible!"

"I've had a horrible nightmare, but I think it's over for now. You wouldn't mind giving the cape a bit of a breeze? It'd cheer me up." he tiredly admitted, motioning to the cape connected to his armor.

"Sure thing!" Bura aimed her finger at the cape and shot a blast of magical ki at it. Within moments the crimson cape was fluttering in the air behind Vegeta, even though there was no wind to be found.

The ouji smirked at it, feeling better already, "Fantastic. You have my gratitude."

* * *

"Wait wait wait." Bulma interrupted, "Bura's your SISTER now?"

"Well she can't be my daughter in this; the math wouldn't add up. Besides, we already went over this with Gohan. I'm operating on doujinshi-logic here." Vegeta pointed out.

"And she's got magical powers."

"**Someone's** got to."

Bulma just shook her head in dismay, "I can see where this is headed."

Vegeta held a perfect poker face.

"No, I know where this is headed. You can be as kind as you know yourself to be to Chi-Chi in this story, but I know your Son-kun-related vices, mister, and if Bura's here only as a plot device to aid your wishful thinking-"

"-there is a legitimate reason that does have to do with the actual storyline." he stubbornly persisted, folding his arms.

She narrowed her eyes at him, then continued, "Hmm..."

* * *

"So? Planning on coming to the tournament?"

"Why would I want to watch a bunch of people I've never met battle?" she leaned against the side of the doorway, "At least when I know the fighters involved I can put some emotional stake in it."

"I'll be fighting the winner tomorrow."

"Well that I'm definitely going to see." Bura grinned.

"Reconsider waiting. Tousan's in charge of the processions, so it'll just be Table and I."

She grimaced. It wasn't that Table was impolite, or offensive; in fact the opposite was true; the kid was just plain bland. If Vegeta was a spicy, meaty enchilada bursting with flavors, and Bura was a high-end strawberry parfait, Table was a cup of nonfat vanilla yogurt, "Yeah, maybe, but don't expect me to be on time with such short notice." Bura sighed, then smiled, "I'll be fashionably late instead."

The ouji smiled back, "I wouldn't expect anything less."

* * *

"I'm still not sure if I'm comfortable with this, you guys." Kuririn admitted as the Gyu Kingdom group walked through a corridor filled with fellow fighters from places Kuririn had only heard of in school or seen on maps, and most of them were very intimidating.

"Aw, we'll do fine. Nothing to worry about." Yamcha said unconvincingly. He was trying to force a look of confidence onto his face, but with his anxiety showing through he only succeeded in looking as though he were in pain.

"First round." Juuhachigou stated. Her mid-back-length hair was up in a messy updo that was part ponytail, part bun.

"What?" Yamcha smiled nervously at her.

"Ossu~!" Goku shouted to the group as he ran over to join them, "Morning!"

"Morning, Goku." Kuririn felt a little better seeing his friend in such high spirits, "At least you've got a shot of winning this."

"We all do, well, maybe not Yamcha," Juuhachigou added.

"Definitely not Yamcha." Chi-Chi agreed.

"Hey!" Yamcha exclaimed.

"but the rest of us do. Though I suppose it all depends on who we're up against." Juuhachigou continued on.

"Did you sleep well, Goku-san? I was so nervous I barely slept at all." Chi-Chi sighed.

"Yeah I slept OK. I had a visitor though, and it was kinda different and he got all worried when I woke up, but he was nice enough to me." Goku thought out-loud.

"W-what?" Chi-Chi watched him, uneasy.

Goku's unusual statement had grabbed the attention of the rest of his small group as well.

"Not sure we're understanding you there, Goku." Kuririn said tentatively.

"I'm pretty sure I'd locked my door too, I mean it is not every night you wake up to find someone you've never seen before on-top of you in bed."

"EHHHH!?" Chi-Chi exclamation was loud enough to temporarily stop the other conversations going on around them, "Goku-sa what are you talking about?! Are you alright?! Did someone hurt you? You did fight back, right? You can't just let people do that to you, you know!" she was halfway to tearing his gi sash off when Juuhachigou loudly cleared her throat, causing Chi-Chi to give pause to what she was doing to Goku, "I...sorry." Chi-Chi let go, her face beet red, "I just...it's scary having you someplace where I can't keep mean people from takin' advantage of you, Goku-san." she gazed up at him.

Goku only stared back at her in confusion, and that befuddlement only worried Chi-Chi even more.

"It's not your fault that you're so cute, ya know!"

"Weh?" Goku lightly tilted his head to the side.

"Attention! Atención! Kiite kudasai!" one of a pair of familiar voices came out over the loud-speaker, "Will all contestants please gather at the center ring for lot drawings?"

"Looks like we're gonna draw numbers." Kuririn murmured.

Goku clasped his hands together, "Just like the Tenkaichi Budoukai!" his eyes lit up. Now his excitement was beginning to build again; this really was going to be a bonus World Martial Arts Tournament.

* * *

Of the four possible groups, only Goku and Chi-Chi had ended up in the same set, D, while Yamcha had gotten set A, Kuririn B, and Juuhachigou C. While they would end up fighting one another if they reached the top spot of their respective brackets anyway, the chances of the latter three having to fight Goku right off the bat were now greatly reduced. Yamcha and Kuririn weren't sure if this was a thing to be relieved about or not; for one thing, at least they knew Goku's style and techniques. He was their friend and wouldn't want to go harshly on them.

Even though she knew she would fight Goku if they both made it past the second round, Chi-Chi didn't mind all that much, especially after hearing about that close-call Goku'd had last night with who-knows-who. Had someone found out a long-lost saiyajin from a faraway kingdom was a competitor in the tournament and decided they had to have a closer look at Goku while he was locked up in his guest room, asleep and defenseless? Chi-Chi shuddered. What kind of person does that?! She'd kept her eyes out for anyone suspicious, but so far hadn't seen anyone who'd sparked a creepy vibe. How badly she wanted to ask Goku to describe the criminal, but she didn't want him to think she was unnecessarily obsessing over it. Was she?

Goku and friends watched from the sidelines along with the rest of the competitors as the king presided over the opening ceremonies. A woman with long black hair and crimson armor, who Chi-Chi had decided was the king's wife and therefore the queen, co-hosted the speech with him. They good-naturedly bantered back and forth with each other, and she could pick up even more on the subtler cues that they loved one another. She reached over and held Goku's hand while keeping her eyes on the tournament ring.

There was an eruption of applause as the royal couple introduced their children; a young man several years older than Goku and Chi-Chi, another male closer about their age, and a girl in the final throws of childhood and on the cusp of becoming a teenager.

"So that's the guy you'll have to fight in the final round." Chi-Chi looked the oldest of the heirs over, as if she'd already decided that Goku was going to be the champion no contest. The prince was smaller and leaner than his father, but he had enough serious muscle to be a legit threat in the ring.

"That's him." Goku nodded, though the way he said it sounded like he wasn't actually talking to Chi-Chi, or at least on the same page.

Her eyes widened. She spun to face him, "You don't mean-"

"-uhn. That's him. He looks way less friendly today though. I don't think he had a good night's sleep either."

Chi-Chi heard static in her ears. The prince?! Her Goku-sa had almost been assaulted by the PRINCE?! That didn't make any sense! This entire island was full of saiyajin to choose from and he had picked her Goku-san?!

"His name's Veggie-tah." Goku thought out-loud.

She raised an eyebrow. It felt like Goku was pronouncing something wrong again. She waited a moment and sure enough the king introduced his son as Vegeta, emphasis at the middle of the name, not the end like Goku had interpreted. Bejito introduced the names of his younger son and daughter, but Chi-Chi didn't catch those; she was too busy feeling ill at the thought of her own inevitable confrontation someone whose title was in league with her own.

* * *

He was incredible. Vegeta could scarcely believe it was the same saiyajin. The muddled look had left Goku's face, replaced by the clear, sharper expression of a martial artist who knew how to fight and did it well. There was well-executed precision in each of his movements; he struck quick and hard yet did not waste his power. Unlike the ouji, this wasn't someone who toyed with their food, this was someone who thirsted for a physical challenge and went all out when he found one. Even his agility was to be admired; not a single opponent in the past four preliminary rounds had been able to grab a hold of Goku's tail, even though he let it waft recklessly in the air behind him instead of wrapping it around his waist the way all saiyajin children are taught to do in battle even after they've trained their tails to withstand pain.

Vegeta could tell then and there that if he were to face Goku tomorrow, he would be in for a devastatingly difficult fight. The first one of that caliber that he'd had in a long time. A smirk crossed his lips as he leaned forward, silently wishing for this unknown member of his kingdom to succeed.

"Vejita?" Brolli spoke up, mostly on purpose to snap the prince from his trance. He did not like the look in Vegeta's eyes as he watched that saiyajin down there.

"Perhaps I didn't make a mistake last night after all." Vegeta said, mostly to himself.

"Pardon?" Brolli inquired, controlling his reactions carefully.

With a final gut-punch, Goku had KO'd his latest opponent and was officially moved forward to Round 1. He would need to win almost half a dozen more battles; three from D group, the winner of C group, and the winner of the outcome of A group vs B group in order to advance to the final round against Vegeta.

"So you're opponent number 7 then?" Raditz, a tall, bulky saiyajin with long spiky hair asked, trying to figure the math out.

"Indeed." the ouji replied, pleased as he watched Goku happily celebrate his victory. The moment the battle was over the saiyajin in the ring below exploded with sweetness once more. This was too good to be true! And yet it was! Vegeta gave a thumbs-up, "Good job."

"What?" Raditz blinked, confused.

Even Raditz's super-deep, rough warrior's voice which Vegeta was slightly jealous of-the prince's voice was also legitimately deep and growly, but he supposed the fact that Raditz was also loads weaker than Vegeta in battle balanced things out-couldn't bring him down.

"Raditz," Vegeta said, turning to face him, "I'm going to keep him."

"What are you talking about!? Don't tell me stuff like that!" Raditz was horrified.

"Ah ha...Vejita's just entertaining his imagination, that's all, right?" Brolli laughed uncomfortably.

"Vegeta-san, that's unusually naughty of you." Turles appeared amused at this.

"Exactly, he's simply playing us for a joke." Brolli misunderstood Turles, nodding with partial relief, "How funny, Vejita."

Table shook his head, worried, "I think Oniisan is serious."

"I wonder...what your real name is, Son Goku." Vegeta rubbed his hands together schemingly.

* * *

"Achoo!" Goku let out a sneeze. He rubbed his nose while his Round 1 opponent laughed at him.

"Getting a little cold for you?" his opponent, a street battler with ice powers Goku had seen in passing while picking out a lottery ball, stood at the other end of the ring, chuckling at him, "What a shame. Saiyajin are terribly sensitive to cold weather."

Goku only stared back at him, "Something was itchin' my nose." he pointed to it, "I don't feel that cold."

"Yet." the man swung both of his arms forward and a blast of frigid air hit Goku, who quickly dodged the attack only to watch a good chunk ice suddenly form on the outer wall below audience seating.

"Huh, that is different."

"Don't act so casual! This is a life or death match!" his opponent ran at him and leapt into the air and shot a blast down at Goku, who dodged it once more. These attacks continued one after the other and once Goku realized what was going on it was too late to prevent it.

The entire ring was now covered in ice.

Goku stumbled to keep his balance, but the floor was so slippery now.

"Hahahaha!" the street battler laughed, now with ice-blades on the bottoms of his shoes as he skated figure eights around Goku, "This really is too easy."

"Oooh!" tossing caution to the wind, Goku threw himself sideways, trying to knock his opponent off his feet. The man leapt over him instead, landing on his feet while Goku clumsily hit the ground, letting out small pained noises. He looked over his shoulder at his feet and took his moment to reach down and take his boots off before throwing them out of the ring. The ice was freezing against his bare feet, but at least like this he felt like he'd gotten some of his agility back.

As his opponent skated back towards him, Goku pretended to be startled and this time slipped on purpose. As he fell, he tapped he heels of his naked feet together and let out a foot-kamehameha at direct range. The street battler was thrown backward and thanks to the extra speed given him by the icy ring he flew back even faster. Before he knew it he'd hit the grassy knoll outside. Ring out.

Chi-Chi, Kuririn, and Yamcha cheered him excitedly from the sidelines. Juuhachigou gave a small wave of approval.

"Heh-heh." Goku grinned back at them.

* * *

Yamcha's round 1 streak was par the course. He lost.

"Why do I even enter these things!? All I ever get out of it is heartache!"

"Well, hey, at least you did real well in the preliminaries." Kuririn pointed out.

"You're like the champion of honorable mentions." Juuhachigou added, entertained.

Yamcha held his head in his hands, "Why do you enjoy my suffering?"

"Relax, drama king, it's not a do or die situation." she rolled her eyes, "We didn't expect you to win the whole thing anyway. It'll probably be Son Goku or I." Juuhachigou explained.

"Then why did you insist I come along?!"

"..." she shrugged, "Moral support?"

Yamcha let out another groan of bereavement. He was the only one of the entire group not to make it into round two. Juuhachigou had defeated her opponent with quick, blunt ease. Kuririn had gotten into a pinch, but he'd gotten himself out of it and come back with a tricky finishing move. Chi-Chi had been evenly matched in strength and was able to simply outlast her opponent in durability.

And now it was Goku's turn again.

Standing there across the other side of the ring from him was a tall woman in a green kimono that was far less casual yet no less constricting in movement than the one Chi-Chi had donned the other day.

"Why is she wearing that? You can't perform martial arts in a kimono; it slows you down like crazy." Chi-Chi wondered, folding her arms.

"I saw her earlier during the preliminaries." Kuririn spoke up.

"Of course you did." Juuhachigou sighed.

The former monk shifted uncomfortably, "Urm, I mean, I saw one of her battles. She's got some kinda psychic powers; made her opponent walk away and ring himself out without her moving a muscle!"

"What?" Chi-Chi's eyes widened. She turned back to face the ring, "GOKU-SA! BE CAREFUL!"

"OK!" Goku happily waved back at her from his side of the ring.

"Ohohoho!" green kimono lady laughed at him.

Goku spun back around and let out a gasp; the entire ring was now covered with trees, "Whoa, neat."

"Isn't it lovely? Such a beautiful spring day." she smiled, relaxed. The wind picked up and leaves from an unseen cherry blossom began to blow past them. Green kimono lady began to slowly approach him, "Surely, Son-san, this is a perfect day for a picnic?" she spoke persuasively to him.

"Are we gonna fight now?" Goku asked, perplexed.

Green kimono lady's face momentarily contorted in shock, "Ah-" she recovered, "Son-san, whatever would we want to do that for? We are dear friends, after all. Oh! I seem to have left the lunch basket over there. Why don't you go get it for me?"

Goku glanced over his shoulder to see a large basket sitting just a few steps away from where the edge of the ring used to be and the shining park was now. He turned back to her, "You've got really nice special effects, but I'm actually pretty full right now." he patted his belly, "In fact, I've had the best dinner and breakfast just last night 'n this morning than I have in a long while."

"Special effects..? How dare you!" a thunderstorm suddenly appeared and rain began to pour down upon them, but, Goku noticed, they weren't actually getting wet, "What kind of guy are you!? Nobody has a libido that dead! I'd dare say you don't have one at all!"

"Um, what?" Goku smiled, baffled.

She dramatically swung her arm upward, "The red string of fate that binds us is on fire, and I'm about to burn you." she snarled at him as fire spread from the middle of the thread that had also appeared without warning and made its way towards Goku.

"Weh?" he reached over with his free hand and grabbed his end of the string-which was tied to his pinky finger-with both hands and gave a rough tug, yanking green kimono lady up over and past him as she lost her footing and fell several inches away from the ring. As she hit the ground and her concentration broke, the illusions she'd created vanished. They were in the arena once more.

"SON GOKU WINS!" Vejitto's voice filled the stadium from the announcer's booth.

Cheers spread throughout the audience.

"Um, what just happened?" Yamcha blinked, confused. No one outside of Goku and his opponent had seen the illusions, so to everyone else it looked as though Goku had used some kind of theatre miming to throw the lady out of the ring without even touching her.

"You are an empty-headed, unromantic fool!" green kimono lady exclaimed, pointing a grass-stained finger at Goku.

Chi-Chi gave Goku a thumbs-up. He laughed and waved back.

* * *

"Ohhhhh..." Kuririn's head was still spinning. He had gotten clocked in the head during his round two and lost after passing out, "Juuhachigou, I'm so sorry."

"Relax. Just keep your head elevated, you'll be fine." she sighed, "We'll be back home by the tomorrow anyway; you can have Bulma take a look at it then."

"Is it really alright to wait that long?"

Juuhachigou shrugged, "Who knows."

Chi-Chi took a deep breath. It was her turn again. If she were to defeat this next opponent, and Goku to defeat his...the two of them would end up fighting one another to become the winner of D Block. She had sparred with Goku countless times, but she dreaded having to fight him here in what turned out to be his original home soil. And that creepy guy! Chi-Chi couldn't entirely shake the feeling that something terrible had almost-happened to Goku-san last night. He was an average sleeper, there was no telling how light or deep he slept on a particular night. Sometimes she could wake him with a pin drop. Other times she would have to shout or physically shove him off his bed onto the floor before he'd leave dreamland. Last night Goku had slept lightly. If he hadn't been so lucky...she glanced over at the area in the audience where the royal family sat. The older prince wasn't watching, he was speaking to a very tall, magazine-cover handsome male guard with dark forest-green hair. Chi-Chi thought the guard looked more like a prince than the actual one.

Brolli pulled up a chair and sat down nearby Vegeta, glumly wishing he could've entered the tournament himself, but as a royal guard he had his duties, so he stayed put.

"So! Are you going to fight or not?" a voice snapped Chi-Chi out of her thoughts as she turned back to face her opponent.

He reminded her of the animal-people she'd seen back at the village, but there was something different about this over-confident golden monkey guy in eastern armor.

"Well obviously you've just never seen a living legend before." he reached behind his ear and lifted a toothpick out from behind it, "Ruyi Bang!" instantaneously the toothpick transformed in size to resemble a martial artist's pole.

"That looks like nyoi-bo!" Goku exclaimed from the sidelines. He dashed over to the spot where he'd left his things to find nyoi-bo still sitting there in its case.

"Nyoi-bo can't do stuff like that though, right?" Kuririn asked, confused.

"Here we are!" Goku was suddenly back beside him, now holding nyoi-bo in his arms, "No, I don't think so. At least, I've never gotten it to change size before. Length, yeah, but..."

A whistle blew loudly over the arena, signaling the start of the match as Chi-Chi's opponent performed some practice moves with his pole.

"I'm Sun Wukong! The handsome monkey king! To not have heard of me is a crime!" he struck his ruyi bang down against the hard ring floor, "And while I'm no agent of justice, I'm certainly gonna bring a smackdown on you for your ignorance, lady." he grinned at her, "Oh hell, who am I kidding? I'm gonna take you down no matter what you say! Appealing to my vanity will serve you nothing. RUYI BANG, EXTEND!" he ordered the staff which shot out in length at Chi-Chi, who had to put her full force into dodging it, simply based on how fast it was. Wukong thrust the staff at her several more times before pulling its length back to base and rushing at her. He leapt into the air, picking several hairs off his shoulder mid-flight and throwing them down. In a puff of smoke, each hair became another Wukong.

"You're pretty boring, lady." all five said in unison, "You haven't attacked me yet. Though I guess it must be difficult, seeing how awesome I am must've struck you dumb. Or maybe you're just too weak to land a punch or kick."

_::Impossible. The REAL "Son Goku".::_ she swallowed heavily as she dodged and defended attacks from the four imposter-clones and the original-who still held the bo staff, "GOKU-SA!" she shouted, tripping one of the Wukongs, who hit the ground and in another puff of smoke turned back into a hair, "Throw me nyoi-bo!"

"Uhn!" Goku nodded, taking it out of the case.

"Wait! Are you allowed to do that? Giving weapons to fighters from the sidelines like this?" Kuririn asked, "I just don't want Chi-Chi to get disqualified is all."

"HE'S using a weapon so why can't I?!" she balked.

"Almost any weapon's allowed within reason." Gogeta's voice came out over the speakers.

"Goku-san!" Chi-Chi shouted again.

"Nyoi-bo, extend!" Goku ordered. The red bo staff, far plainer than Wukong's golden-tipped crimson staff, shot out in length towards Chi-Chi, who grabbed one end as Goku let go of the other. She swung around in time for nyoi-bo to clash directly against ruyi bang as if in a sword battle.

"Well, that's different." Wukong said, amused, yet not shaken, "It seems we have an imposter of a different sort on our hands!" he announced, then took a look at Goku just over Chi-Chi's shoulder, "I look forward to seeing you in the next round, Knockoff."

Chi-Chi pressed nyoi-bo forward, struggling. Thankfully the remaining three fake Wukongs had turned back into hair as well.

Wukong brought his leg up and kneed the nyoi-bo from the side, causing Chi-Chi to lose her stance. This freed the Wukong up to pull ruyi bang back and then swing it in from the side, hitting Chi-Chi square in the left arm and sending her flying across the ring. She landed in-ring, but just barely. A searing pain screamed across her left arm as she gripped nyoi-bo tightly with her right hand. Her brain barely registered Goku and the others crying out her name. Kuririn's scream sounded particularly horrified and Chi-Chi cringed, not wishing to know why, but she had to anyway. She squinted shut and ever-so-carefully tried to move her left arm. She let out a wail of her own. It was broken. The entire lower half of her left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle. Bruises were beginning to form at the impact area and she was almost certain it was bleeding internally. Chi-Chi struggled to her feet.

"Whoa, getting up after that? Not wise, not wise." Wukong hung back, performing more show-offy spinning tricks with his bo staff. He struck an attack pose and held ruyi bang as one would a pool cue, "This is getting boring. Time to put you out of your misery. Ruyi bang, extend!"

"Nyoi-bo, extend!" Chi-Chi shouted, just a half-second too late. Wukong's staff reached her first, hitting Chi-Chi in the stomach and throwing her several feet. She struck the grassy area outside the ring and collapsed, unconscious.

"THE WINNER!" Wukong had created another fake in the meantime who was holding the original's arm in the air while a handful of other fake Wukongs applauded him.

Wukong smirked, boastful, "Was there **ever** any doubt?"

* * *

"He really got you good. It'll take at least a few months for that to heal." the doctor said as she stood back away from Chi-Chi, whose arm was now in a cast and a sling.

"Thank you." Chi-Chi nodded in reply.

"Aw, it'll take way less time than that with-oop!" Goku felt Chi-Chi's right elbow jab him in the gut.

"Goku-san." she said warningly, then thanked the doctor again and left the offices with her childhood friend in tow.

"What was that for?" Goku pouted.

"I know what you were going to say and yes I will go to see Dende, but that can wait until after the tournament's over."

"Hn." Goku tilted his head, "I know if it was me, I'd wanna stay too to see the rest of the fights, but you tell me all the time that it's better to treat really bad injuries right away or else there could be compilations."

"Complications." she corrected him.

"Yeah, that."

Chi-Chi made a fist with her right hand, "Goku-sa, I just don't want to leave you here by yourself, that's all. Even if it's just for one day!"

"Aw, I'm plenty strong. I can handle anybody who tries to mess with me." he smiled back at her.

"Can you?"

Goku gave pause, "You think there's somebody here stronger than me." he murmured. His face lit up with excitement, "Chi-Chi, is there somebody here stronger than me?!" his tail was practically wagging behind him.

Chi-Chi's bottom left eyelid twitched, "Anyone else would be terrified asking that question."

"But I'm not anybody else." confusion hovered over Goku for a moment, "Who is it? Don't make it a secret please tell me!"

"I don't know! All I'm saying is that you're not the big fish in the small pond like you are at home, so be careful." she strode back towards the competitors' waiting area.

"You don't have to worry." Goku called from behind her, "I'll beat up that Wukong guy real good for ya!"

Chi-Chi smiled, secretly pleased with her back still facing Goku, "I know you will."

* * *

"Welcome back." Juuhachigou dryly said as Goku and Chi-Chi re-approached the spot where the rest of their group had been sitting in the wings. Kuririn was still holding his head, which was still spinning. Juuhachigou now had an eyepatch over her right eye, which was the first thing Goku noticed.

"Don't. Say. A word." she warned him, glaring back, "And yes, I lost my Round 3."

"I really, really think we should all head home to see Dende." Yamcha pointed out, "Well, you three anyway."

"Hah! Leaving you here to watch over Goku-san would be the same as leaving him by himself!" Chi-Chi exclaimed.

Yamcha frowned, "That is hurtful."

"She's right though." Juuhachigou added.

"Hey!"

"I'm up for heading home early." Kuririn offered, "Or down. I'm not sure which. It's hard to tell." he rubbed his eyes.

"But we can't leave Goku-san here by himself! You've seen what hardened warriors these saiyajin are! Goku-sa is tough and really powerful, but...but...but he's so damn cute! Look at him!" Chi-Chi protested, standing to the side and motioning to Goku.

"Weh?" he blinked, befuddled.

"He'll be fine." Juuhachigou said dismissively, waving her hand in the air, "You don't even know if he's going to make it to the finals anyway. For all we know he'll lose this round or the next one and he won't have to stay over for a night after all; he'll come home same time as us."

Chi-Chi shook her head, "No no! I don't want Goku-san to throw the match! We need that money to rebuild parts of the village, and to buy enough food to keep Goku-sa properly fed!"

"What if we just wait long enough to see if Goku makes it through the last two rounds?" Yamcha offered, "If he doesn't, no harm no foul, we'll all go home together. If he does, so what if he stays an extra day and comes home with the prize money in tow tomorrow afternoon? It's not like he's not gonna come back."

"You don't know that!" Chi-Chi snapped.

"Neither do you!" he snapped back.

She spun around to face Goku, "Goku-san, you are coming back home with us, right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" he smiled back at her, tilting his head ever-so-slightly.

Chi-Chi clenched her fist, deep in internal struggle, "FINE." she admitted, "We'll watch Goku-san's next two fights and if he wins...we'll go from there."

"Hey! Copycat! You coming out here or not?" Wukong shouted from the middle of the ring.

Goku reached behind his back and pulled nyoi-bo out of its case. He spun it a few times, then rested it on the ground while he lifted the shoulder strap for its case off himself and set that down, "I'm no copycat." he smirked back, "And I'm gonna hit you real hard for breakin' Chi-Chi's arm like that." Goku said as he walked towards the ring.

"That's right, pretty boy, avenge your love!" Wukong taunted, "Won't do you any good though, I can tell you right now you need at least 1000 years of training before you could hope to defeat me!"

"Maybe so, but maybe not." Goku handled nyoi-bo with ease. He let it swing out and extend suddenly, striking Wukong in the ear and grazing the side of his head as the monkey king barely dodged the attack.

Wukong appeared momentarily vexed, then regained his ground, "That's your weapon alright. I could tell by the way she swung it that it didn't belong to her." he looked around, "And judging from the looks of this audience, you don't belong to her either."

Chi-Chi flinched from where she stood.

Goku only appeared confused.

"But me? One of the most wonderful things about me is I'm the only one. T i double grr, Copycat." Wukong boasted, then thrust ruyi bang forth. This time it was Goku's turn to dodge, which he did so splendidly, "I can't imagine what it feels like, to go your entire life thinking you're an anomaly in the food chain; no one to ever really relate to, and then suddenly, this." he motioned around, "You must have so many questions for them."

"Nope." Goku shrugged.

Wukong raised an eyebrow, his manipulation not working at all, which was a rarity in itself, "Haha. What kind of guy are you? You're suddenly one of thousands and you really don't care about your people?"

Goku motioned behind him, "My people are my friends over there, and the ones I left back home. If there are any strong guys here like me, I wanna get the chance to fight 'um, but that's it."

"Goku-sa..." Chi-Chi clasped her right hand to her cheek, relieved.

"Goku..." Kuririn smiled, touched.

"Man, you are one weird dude." Wukong muttered, "Mind games are done. New plan!" this time he grabbed a bundle of hairs and threw them to the ground. The puff of smoke revealed nearly 20 Wukongs this time. They all ran at Goku together, who used a foot kamehameha to launch himself up into the air. Tucking nyoi-bo in the side of his gi sash, Goku struck his arms out and shot down ki blasts like rain, hitting and destroying the fake Wukongs with deadly accuracy.

The ensuing smoke was enough to fog up the ring below, allowing Wukong the opening to extend his bo staff upwards and hit Goku square in the chest. Or so he thought. As the smoke cleared, Wukong saw Goku had actually caught the thing, his hands on either side. Ruyi Bang as only millimeters from actually hitting Goku's torso, and there it struggled to push forwards while Goku held it in place.

"I wonder what would happen if I broke it?" Goku said as he struggled, curious.

"I wouldn't know, it's never happened before." Wukong replied, just as curious, "Not that you're powerful enough to find out." instead he swung it forward with Goku still holding on. Goku was now hurtling towards the ground, towards ring out territory. He spun backwards and slid halfway down the pole before getting to his feet and with three hop kicks ran the rest of its length faster than it could grow. Goku leapt off the edge of ruyi bang and punched Wukong square in the jaw. The bo staff fell from Wukong's momentarily weakened grasp and it was then that Goku launched into a full fisticuffs hand-to-hand combat with him.

"They're moving so fast my eyes can barely keep up with them!" Raditz exclaimed, shocked.

Vegeta was pleased. Finally he was getting to see more of Son Goku's close-combat techniques. Not that the fact that Son Goku had an extendable bo staff as his weapon wasn't even more buttercream icing on the at least 8 tiered cake, "You're missing something quite special then." the ouji could follow their movements just fine.

Goku could feel it. He had him on the ropes now, or close to it. Wukong's impulsiveness had broken through. He was fighting recklessly now, even as they moved towards the edge of the ring. Goku couldn't tell if their direction had been improvised, or a purposeful ploy to knock him out of the ring. That seemed unlikely; Wukong was the type who preferred to K.O. his opponents. A ring out would be boring for him, just as it would be boring for Goku. Using his tail to aim, Goku let himself fall to the floor and slid under and past Wukong's legs back towards the center of the ring. As Wukong turned to face him and as Goku stood up, his arms were already enacting the motions to launch a, "KA MEH HA MEH HAAAAA!"

The explosion of aqua ki hit the gobsmacked Wukong dead on. He was knocked backward not only out of the ring, but into the heavy wall of the stadium itself. Wukong fell forward onto the grass, leaving an imprint on the wall behind him.

The audience roared.

Wukong pulled himself to his feet, his hands still on his knees as he looked up towards the ring where Goku stood, "D-dammit. That was really cool!" he stubbornly admitted.

"Hahaha." Goku laughed back, embarrassed, "Thank you."

* * *

"Juuhachigou, that's really the guy who beat you?" disappointment hung in Goku's voice as he stood there across from the winner of C block an average-looking man in spectacles and a doctor's uniform.

She lifted her eye-patch to reveal her injured eye-reddened and swollen, it made Goku flinch with discomfort, "Just watch yourself; be careful of his hands."

"His, hands?" Goku blinked, then let out a yelp "Uwaah! Need-"

"-he doesn't have any needles!"

"Whuh?"

"Well now, let's see what sort of symptoms you'll have." spectacles smirked at him as he began to remove his gloves. As he did a horrible stench emerged that screamed at Goku's hyper-sensitive sense of smell. The man's hands, unlike the rest of him, were covered in a thick, gooey purple grime. He held them up above his head like an orchestra conductor. As if on command, the goo rose off his hands and into the air before shooting down at Goku, who did his best to dodge the attacks as he ran towards his opponent. Pulling back his arm as he reached him, Goku prepared to slug the side of the man's head only to have spectacles' swing his own arm back towards Goku, pausing it before the saiyajin's face. Goku's eyes widened as the amount of goo suddenly grew and exploded all over him, covering Goku from head to toe.

"AHH!" Vegeta got up from his seat and leaned against the overhang of the royal booth. His new favorite was going to choke to death or die from poisoning before he even got a chance to fight him.

Goku let out a muffled scream from inside as he used a kiai to force back at the blanket of gunk, causing it to explode out ward into hundreds of little pieces. Standing there, lightly covered in bits of the stuff and breathing heavily, Goku glowered at spectacles, who seemed perturbed at Goku's state, "That was scary!" he snapped at him.

"Ah...? H, how can you possibly still be standing?! That was more than a full dose?!" he stumbled back. His hands were almost completely exposed now. His skintone was visible beneath the now-missing layers of goo that hadn't fully regenerated yet.

"Tch. Foolish." Brolli muttered, "Vejita, you had no need to worry, nor should you over that person anyway, but to the point..." he trailed off, catching the prince's attention, "According to my father, the saiyajin immune system is so powerful that most currently-known poisons are incapable of affecting us. Of the select few that are, well, whichever one that man is using isn't one of them."

Vegeta breathed a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, down in the ring, spectacles was practically hyperventilating. It wasn't that he didn't know some martial arts, or that he couldn't fight without his special power, but put up against someone like Goku...

One swift kick later and spectacles was face-planted into the grass outside of the ring while Goku was being cheered from the sidelines.

* * *

"If you think I'm gonna go quietly, you're sadly mistaken!" B Block's winner, and Goku's final opponent before the chance to face Vegeta the following day if he succeeded, stood in his way. She was a martial artist from a colder climate than Goku, and her winter clothes proved that. He could believe that she had defeated Kuririn. Her ki was strong enough, but that she had gotten this far?

The fight began innocuously enough, trading kicks and punches in what Goku found almost unusual for this tournament after all the crazy stuff he'd seen today. He bounced back and shot a ki blast, which was soon deflected.

The girl struck an offence stance and prepared to shoot her own ki blast. With her hands placed near her face and her eyes shut, Goku was certain it was something similar to Tenshinhan's taiyo-ken. He shut his own eyes tight and held his arms up in-front of his face to brace himself.

The blast of ki was nearly colorless, and as it swept over him, Goku felt a wave of nausea in his stomach. He opened up his eyes and let out a cry; everything was spinning! He covered them back up again, his heart beating wildly in his chest. Peeking again, Goku saw the world was now distorted and blurry and moving up and down in waves; it was like being heavily medicated, but it was regulated to his eyes only.

His opponent swung in and landed a kick to his side, knocking Goku over. Back behind him he could hear Chi-Chi shouting at him with worry.

Goku closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could do this without his sight. It wasn't as fun if he couldn't see the world around him, but he could do it. Standing up, he followed the girl's ki returned the attack.

Obviously not someone who had not learned to sense ki, or even that ki could be sensed, the girl was struck with shock as she defended as many blows as she could.

"This isn't fun anymore so I'm gonna end it as soon as I can." Goku told her.

"Fun? What are you, crazy?! It's a fighting tournament, it's supposed to be a challenge, it's not supposed to be-" a ki blast front cut her short and sent her tumbling out of the ring and nearly into the stands.

* * *

It had taken a good ten minutes, but Goku's vision eventually stopped swimming. Kuririn, however, was not so lucky. His head was still pulsating. After asking the girl about it, she'd informed them that eventually it would wear off for Kuririn just as it had for Goku, but he'd probably just need to sleep it off or take some headache medicine. Kuririn hoped she was right.

In a way, Wukong had been the most challenging opponent Goku had had all day. While his last two opponents had offered unique challenges and techniques, neither of them had been nearly as strong or tactical as he had hoped.

There'd been cheers and hugs and glomping at his winning the tournament, but Goku was itching to take on that final round against the prince. He didn't want to have to wait a whole 'nother day to fight him, he was ready to go now. Vegeta's strength far surpassed Wukong's, Goku could tell even from where he stood in the wings of the waiting area.

"You know, you should ask them." Chi-Chi spoke up, "If they'll let you fight him now. That way, you won't have to stay an extra day! I mean, you're all warmed up anyway."

Goku blinked, "Think they'd let me?"

Juuhachigou folded her arms, "She's just saying that because something's got her unnecessarily worried about you, more than usual I mean." the fighters' waiting area was swiftly emptying out. Everyone else was grabbing their things and preparing to head home via the airships that had brought them to the sky island.

"Goku," Kuririn tried to speak through the dizziness he felt in his head, "if you think you can take him after having fought all those other guys all day long, more power to you. If it were me, I'd want to take him on even grounds; if you're both fully rested up there won't be any argument no matter who wins. Think about the other guy. How would you feel if he was out there fighting all day and you were sitting around and then went to go fight him after all that?"

"I would not be satisfied." Goku made a pouty face.

Chi-Chi wanted to smack Kuririn in the head, but she didn't. He was right. Goku's chances of winning would be higher if he were at 100 percent, and wasn't that what they wanted? Lowering their chances of winning the whole thing would be dangerous as that money would help them be able to keep Goku around and healthily fed. If he lost, the possibility of him remaining here where he'd have plenty of food no matter what would actually come into play, and for Chi-Chi, that would be terrible.

"Welcome back~!"

"Ready to go~?"

They group turned to see Vejitto and Gogeta standing there in casual wear. With the tournament mostly over, the pomp and circumstance was gone. If you were to ignore their flame-shaped hair, the two of them could easily pass as Goku's brothers.

_::Come to think of it, I wonder if Goku-sa has any blood-related family members? Are they here? Are they alive? Did they recognize him out there in the ring?::_ Chi-Chi wondered, her thoughts muddled up. It would be nice, she supposed, if Goku were to have some living long-lost family who cared for him, but at the same time she so selfishly wanted him to remain that orphan so he would definitely come back home with her. Familial ties would potentially complicate things. But then she felt awful and intensely disliked herself for thinking of such things, "I need to clear my head." Chi-Chi said to herself, sighing.

"Well, it is a long trip back." Vejitto responded.

"You'll have plenty of time." Gogeta added.

The group headed towards the now familiar airship and Gogeta opened the side door as everyone but Goku boarded.

"What'll I do now?" Goku asked, confused. Everyone was leaving and he had a whole late afternoon and evening to kill.

"Why, I'll escort you back to the dining hall, of course." King Bejito appeared, emerging from the crowd, "After that you'll head back to your guest room for a good night's sleep and before you know it the Final Round will be upon you."

"Final Round?" Goku grinned with excitement.

"Yes, indeed." the king coughed. He turned to the group inside the ship, "No need to worry, your friend is in good hands. Have a safe trip home."

The ship lifted off into the air. Chi-Chi couldn't help but sense an ominous feeling in her gut as she waved to Goku while he and the king grew farther away. Leaving Goku by himself, especially here, seemed like an awful idea; as if she'd stuck a fly in a web and was just inviting the spiders to eat it.

* * *

2:20 PM 9/13/2012

**~*End of Part 2*~**


	3. Masquerades and Murder

12:02 AM 9/14/2012

**Disclaimer: Dragon Ball Z is a property of Akira Toriyama, Toei Animation, and Shueisha**

**Summary: When a lack of updates and an overly playful Goku drive Vegeta into temporary hiding within the bowels of Capsule Corp, he decides to take out his frustration on an old typewriter and come up with his own movie plotline. With a morbidly curious Bulma to referee, what kind of dastardly adventure will the prince come up with?**

**Part 3: "Masquerades and Murder"**

* * *

With the crowds gone and the afternoon coming to a close, Goku found the low-lit, enormous castle interior with its high ceilings and dull cool colors even larger and emptier than before. King Bejito was leading him back towards the dining area that Goku and his friends had eaten in the previous day, but when they arrived Goku hadn't expected to find himself the room's sole occupant.

"Isn't anybody else hungry?" Goku looked over at Bejito, confused.

"Ah, well, you see, there's a masquerade ball being held in the prince's honor this evening. We're going to have a full buffet along with the kingdom's highest-ranking chefs preparing special occasion-only dishes. I'm to meet the rest of the royal family there shortly as soon as I've completed my business here." the king explained, "It's a very exclusive party, I hopefully haven't offended you by not inviting-"

"-oh I don't mind. I'm not that comf'table at parties anyway." Goku smiled back, "It'll be nicer to stay here and just eat how I wanna eat, even if I'm by myself."

"Well, good to know." Bejito replied, feeling a little better. He motioned to the interior doorknob, "Be sure to turn this to the side to lock it when you leave."

"That's really trusty of you."

"Well you seem to be a very trustworthy character." the king said as he took his leave. Goku could hear his footsteps as they disappeared down the hall.

With that, the saiyajin walked up to a fridge the size Goku had long-wished fridges came in, and opened the door to reveal a plethora of delicious goods within. A hungry grin spread across his face as he went about his business, making sure to visit each and every pantry door and taking from them as he pleased.

It really wasn't so bad, eating alone. He could eat as much of whatever he wanted and mix and match all sorts of foods together. Clearly this was one of the best rooms in the entire castle.

The dining room table soon became an immense mess with no rhyme or reason, but Goku didn't care. His mind was worlds away as he devoured the food around him, so much so that he didn't even notice a similarly self-occupied mind that had entered the room.

"Yes, Bejito, you're going to pay. Dearly, in fact." Paragus laughed wickedly as he picked a few choice items out of one of the pantries.

"Ossu~!"

Paragus froze in place. The squeaky voice having snapped him out of his own thoughts, he stiltedly turned to face this complete stranger who had taken the dining room for his own and was clearly a messy eater as evidenced by the numerous stains on what looked to be some sort of mango-colored marital artist's uniform, "O-ohhhsu." Paragus replied in the most awkward-sounding "Ossu" Goku had ever heard, even causing him to raise his eyebrows a bit at it.

"Who're you?" Goku decided to continue eating while starting a conversation with this man who had the look of someone caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar.

Mild relief spread across Paragus' face. This fellow he'd walked in on was all stomach and no brains, "Why, I'm one of the royal chefs." he lied, "Here to, retrieve a few special ingredients we've run out of back at the party."

"Really?"

"Yes." Paragus gave him a big fake smile, "Really." he said bluntly.

Goku observed this man, who was dressed in the type of armor he'd seen the soldiers wearing, but unlike them, he wore a cape. The only ones Goku had noticed wore capes were the royal family, "Are you royalty too?"

A deadly chuckle arose from Paragus' throat, "I will be, soon enough."

"You got a weird laugh."

Resisting the urge to throw a chair at Goku's head, Paragus made his way back to the open door, "Well, I've got to be going then. Since we're both making a bit of a blunder-you breaking and entering and I mismanaging my quantity of ingredients-I hope we can simply pretend we never saw one another?"

"Oh, I'm not breaking and entering; I'm havin' dinner." Goku explained, "King Bejito let me in."

"Really?"

"Reallyreally!" Goku happily replied, "I'm the tournament champion!"

Paragus hadn't bothered to pay attention to the tournament, but he had overheard a long-lost saiyajin had been one of the contestants, _::That must be a bit boring for the prince tomorrow; I'd heard there were fighters with far more interesting powers who had entered that competition. Well, it explains that ugly frock he's got on.::_ "Congratulations, "champion"." he spoke patronizingly, "And good luck against the prince tomorrow. I suppose you'll be leaving after that?"

"Yup! I gotta get home with that prize money." Goku nodded.

"Good. Yes, leaving would be best. Return home and allow all your memories of this place to fade and blur with the passage of time, even your memory of witnessing me here tonight, hm?"

"Um, I guess?" Goku found his wording a bit off as he watched Paragus exit the room and head back down the hall in the same direction Bejito had gone off in earlier, but not without dropping something as he went. Getting up out of his chair, Goku wandered over to pick up the small bottle. While he couldn't read the language written there, he did recognize the image of the skull and crossbones stamped on the side.

_:::"Don't touch that, Goku-sa!" Chi-Chi exclaimed, quickly grabbing the box out of Goku's hands as they stood in the storage shed, "This skull and crossbones stamp here means the contents are poisonous. It's for killing bugs and weeds. You can't eat it, you'll die!":::_

"Oh...OHH!" Goku exclaimed as the wheels slowly clicked together, "That guy! He's gonna try and hurt somebody! I gotta do somethin'! Uwaah! What'll I do!" he looked around, then decided; he'd leave the dining room and go search for help. Goku had been too preoccupied by his food to get a read on Paragus' ki signature, plus the older man had gotten at least a ten-minute head-start. Goku ran out of the room, forgetting to close or lock the door behind him, and went about searching for the ki of anyone nearby.

The wing of the castle he was currently in was maddeningly empty. It wasn't until he'd gotten halfway through that he finally found a ki-and a powerful one at that-behind one of the bigger doors. Goku knocked incessantly at the door until it swung open to reveal the girl he'd seen with the royal family earlier. She was wearing only her bodysuit and boots.

"You gotta help!" Goku exclaimed, startling her, "There's gonna be a murder!"

"What?" Bura stared back at him, stunned. It was the cute guy who'd won the tournament earlier; he looked wracked with worry, "Get in here." she ordered, yanking Goku inside and shutting the door behind him, "You can't say stuff like that out where whoever's planning on doing the murdering can hear you!"

"So you believe me? Uwaii! I was so scared that even if I found somebody they wouldn't." Goku plopped himself down on the floor, "Oh! I'm Son Goku by the way." he cheered up a bit.

"Bura Oujisama." she pointed to herself, "Princess."

"Neat."

"Now, about this murder?" Bura proceeded to walk over to a nearby body-length mirror and returned to what she'd been in the middle of doing prior to this, namely trying to decide what to wear to the masquerade via clothes-beam, "Who's the would-be killer?"

"Some guy with a cape, but he's not royalty "yet", is what he said."

"Paragus." was the first and only one Bura knew of who had the audacity to walk around wearing a cape identical to King Bejito's, "He's wanted to be king for years, and he's clashed with Tousan something awful, but to try and kill him? Paragus isn't even that strong. I mean, even Table could probably take him. His son's a different story though."

Goku shook his head, "He didn't say who it was he was gonna try 'n kill, or even that he was gonna kill somebody at all, but he dropped this on his way out of the kitchen." he held out the small bottle, "I can't read what it says, but if this symbol means the same in your kingdom as it does for me back home..."

Bura bent down to take a look, now on her fourth ball-gown and fifth hairstyle, "It's poison!" she paled, backing up, "Here," the oujo shot a small beam at the bottle. A plastic baggy with an "Evidence" label magically appeared around it. The baggy levitated and floated over to a nearby countertop where it was dropped into a drawer, "That may be useful later, and the fact that he lost what was probably one of the stronger ingredients may slow him down. Still, we've got to find Tousan and stop Paragus before he gets to him first!"

"We?" Goku blinked at her.

"You're not putting all of this on my shoulders after coming all this way, are you?!" she gawked.

"Ah, no no, that is not it! I would never do something mean like that!" Goku shook his head, hurt at the idea, "Ano...I can't go any further with you cuz I'm not invited to the fancy party. Plus that Pair-uh-gas guy saw my face! And aren't masquerades costume parties? I don't have any costumes."

Bura stared back at him, incredibly amused, "And that's where I can solve all three of those problems."

Goku tilted his head, befuddled, "Weh?"

* * *

"It's good that you arrived when you did, otherwise I'm not sure if I would've been able to fully heal your arm." Dende pushed his chair back away from where Chi-Chi sat; now testing out her formerly-injured limb by moving it back and forth.

"Thanks Dende, you have no idea how much I appreciate this." with her body healthy again, she could fight, and if that's what it took..., "I've got to get going." she reached for her bag and hurried towards the hospital's exit.

"Have a good night, then." Dende said on purpose. Something was off about this. That did not look like a young woman heading to rest for the night. The way Chi-Chi strode out of the building hastily and with determination spoke to Dende thoughts that she might not be going to bed after all.

"Yeah," Chi-Chi replied distractedly, "good night."

* * *

"Kinto'un! Kinto'un!" trying to get the cloud's attention while having to not wake anybody made Chi-Chi's choice of volume a challenge.

Moments later, Kinto'un came flying down and hovered near the ground before her. Chi-Chi smiled in tired relief at the sight of it. She was one of the few people in town who could ride Kinto'un, and if anyone knew how to get back to the floating island she'd left Goku behind on, it was the character who'd spent most of its time in the sky.

"Chi-Chi?"

She whipped around, halfway on-top of the large fluffy cloud, to see Kuririn standing in the open doorway to his house holding his toothbrush, in the middle of getting ready for bed, "Hey."

"Hey."

"I don't trust them with Goku-san, I'm going to go bring him back."

"He's supposed to be back tomorrow, that's when the final round is, right?"

She shook her head, "I know that, but...but what if he does win and they don't let him leave? Or what if he loses and they convince him to stay 'for his own good'? I know it may make some people happy that we came back without Goku-san, but let me tell you it terrifies me." her mind went back to Goku recounting the story to her of waking up in the middle of the night to find the prince on-top of him in bed, of the things that could've happened to him, of what could be happening to him right now, "He's so easily persuaded or confused and he doesn't worry too much and...and even if I have to fight someone for him I'm gonna do it!"

"Your dad's not gonna like you running off like this."

"I don't care! Maybe I'll even be back with Goku-sa before dad wakes up." she sat down comfortable onto Kinto'un, "...you wanna come?"

"Kinto'un doesn't let me ride it." Kuririn smiled sadly.

"Just as well." she sighed, "Alright, Kinto'un! Let's go rescue Goku-sa! To the sky island!"

Kinto'un hovered upward, then shot off into the warm night air, leaving Kuririn alone in the doorway.

He stuck his toothbrush back in his mouth and trudged inside, closing the door behind him, "I am not gonna sleep well tonight."

* * *

The first thought Goku had was how weighted it felt. The layers and layers of heavy, high-quality material reminded him of the weighted undershirt and boots he would sometimes train with, only this felt more like something to sleep in.

"Who sleeps in a masquerade costume?" Bura sweatdropped at the idea as they made their way down the hall and towards the ballroom.

With the fancy mask covering his eyes, Goku had to turn to see Bura. The mask was easily the most irritating thing about going undercover, but he had no choice if he didn't want to be recognized.

The ball-gown was a princess-shaped, multi-tiered cream-colored concoction with light purple accents and layered bell-sleeves; strategically built both draw attention to the highly-detailed costume while simultaneously hiding the person wearing it. The colors contrasted well against the saiyajin's summer tan, Bura thought. In the end she wasn't able to really do much physically to the other saiyajin's hair, so she'd magic'd up a sweet elegant updo-wig the same shade of midnight blue with a few cream and light purple flowers poking out amongst the curls.

Bura's own dress was shorter and pale sea-foam blue. It had a bit of volume, but stopped above the knees and had a bustle in the back that splayed out in multi-level tiers like ocean waves. She had short puff-sleeves and wore multiple beaded jewels around her wrists and neck. Her hair was tied up on the side with a vivid blue piece and her slim heels brought her up to Goku's height. Like Goku, Bura had her own mask, but unlike him, hers was the opera-house type; a slim handle ran up one side of the mask, allowing her to hold it before her eyes while not having to bother reaching up to take it on and off. It could also conceivably be used as a weapon, Bura decided if the situation were to come to that.

"You know, they have parties back in Gyu Kingdom, but nothing this fancy." Goku commented as they reached a large set of fancily-inlayed doors, "I mean, Chi-Chi's a princess and this is fancier than anything I've ever seen her wear." he motioned to his costume, "Actually, I think this is fancier than what you're wearing too."

"That's kind of the point; you're hiding in plain sight." Bura whipped out a pair of invites, her own and the one she had crafted for Goku, "Here." a pair of gloved hands handed the additional invite to the other gloved pair, "Now remember, you're undercover, so keep your squeaking to a minimum."

"My what?" Goku asked, confused.

Bura sweatdropped as the squeak popped out on the end of Goku's sentence, "Your voice isn't really that out of the ordinary-there's plenty of other type-3 saiyajin-but you sir, are the only one I've met so far who talks..the way you talk. So to keep a low profile, just keep your talking to a minimum. All we gotta do is find my Tousan and stop Paragus."

"Right!" Goku nodded determinedly, making a pair of fists.

Bura reached forward and opened the heavy door for them to enter.

Goku let out a little gasp.

This was easily one of the biggest, most opulent rooms he'd ever seen; and it was crowded with people in all sorts of masquerade costumes eating the most delicious-smelling food he'd ever smelled. Goku's stomach suddenly reminded him that due to Paragus' interruption, he hadn't finished eating dinner. He was still hungry. Not caring that the bottom of his costume dragged across the floor as he walked, he bounded over to one of the buffet tables, grabbed one of the perfectly-sized monster-plates, and began to pile high the tasty-looking foods around him. Half the time, the food would reach his mouth before it even reached the plate. Goku almost regretted gorging himself on the food from the kitchen. Two minutes in and the plate was clean. He reached for a large slice of chocolate-cake only to have another, larger hand nearly cut him off.

"Oh, excuse me!" Brolli turned to look at the saiyajin who'd been eyeing up the same cake slice only to give pause, "My word..." she was gorgeous; like a fairy-tale princess who'd stepped off the page and into the room. Even with the lovely mask hiding her eyes he was certain he'd never seen her before. There's no way he would've missed seeing someone like this around the castle.

Goku's stomach informed him that it was almost-full; all he needed was that one delicious piece of cake to top it off, "My cake?"

Brolli handed it to him no contest.

Giving a mental victory dance, Goku dug in, devouring the chocolaty morsel, "Mmm."

"May I ask you for a dance?"

Bura spit-taked her punch, and at that caught Vegeta's attention. There was no way a saiyajin who'd never even known anything about the kingdom before a few days ago could possibly waltz! Their cover was blown for sure.

"You alright?" Vegeta walked over to Bura, mostly relieved to be away from Brolli's watchful eye and glad it was on somebody else for a change; he'd already declined 12 invitations from the taller saiyajin to dance.

"Vegeta!" Bura gasped, "Oh I'm so happy I found you! Where's Tousan?"

The ouji looked around, "You know, I'm not quite sure."

"I'm not really that good, but OK." Goku scratched the back of his head.

This time Bura nearly fell over. She grabbed onto Vegeta's arm, nervously holding it. There was no way she could pull her brother into this; she didn't want him to get in trouble. She watched as Brolli pulled her undercover agent onto the dance floor only to discover Goku actually knew what he was doing.

"I, I think I might need to sit down." Bura muttered in disbelief. Not only was Goku keeping in time with him, he was knew what to do and was doing it pretty well, "How does that even work?"

"So, my mystery-princess, is the masquerade to your liking so far?"

"Um, yes. It's really nice."

Bura could only stand there, gobsmacked at how far off course this evening was going.

"You know, at midnight it's customary for those donning masks to remove them; I look forward to seeing the beautiful face behind that beautiful mask."

"Ah, you don't say?" Goku squelched a nervous laugh.

Bura had her palms over her face at this point, "Stupid Brolli, messing everything up. He's gotta be done soon, right?"

"What am I missing?" Vegeta asked her, baffled.

"I can't tell you."

"What?"

The song playing came to a close and Brolli gently let his mystery-princess go, but not without a kiss to the back of a gloved hand first. He bowed lightly and left to pursue the dessert buffet at the other side of the room.

Goku walked back over to Bura, unsure of what to make of this, "I just had an experience." he looked down at his glove, "I'm not sure what kinda experience, but I just had one."

Vegeta's eyes widened. That voice. That scent. He felt his hands grow sweaty under his gloves as he reached up, practically mesmerized, for the delicate mask obscuring this stranger's face.

"Oniichan!" Bura stomped on his foot out of panic.

The prince let out a stifled yelp. He glowered at Bura, half-confused as to why she'd done that.

She held the handle connected to her mask up to cover her own eyes, "We're **undercover**." Bura emphasized.

Vegeta pointed at Goku, "Then that's-"

"Ossu." Goku gave him a small wave.

"..." Vegeta went silent for a brief moment, "Forget the party. You. My room. If my parents ask where I am, tell them I'm sick and left early, because I am sick. Sick with desire the depths of which I have never known before and sweet culinary arts just when I thought you couldn't possibly get any more appealing..." the ouji's eyes, hidden beneath his mask, never left Goku. In fact they travelled up and down the other saiyajin several times, "I've never wanted to actually make anyone my oujo before today, this feeling, it's like...there's no way to accurately describe it."

Goku looked over at Bura, "Am I about to have another experience?"

"Oniisan, we don't have time for this. I realize I've outdone myself here," it was about now that Bura noticed there were multiple sets of eyes checking Goku out as they passed by, "but there's something more important we have to get to. Have you seen Tousan?"

"Huh?" Vegeta's focus was completely gone for now. He turned to Bura, not quite sure how to respond or even what she'd just asked him.

"Wow, thank you very much." Goku waved to a few more passersby who had just given him a few platefuls of desserts, which he promptly ate.

Bura rubbed her temples in frustration.

"I can definitely see why people wear these big fancy dresses; you get lotsa free snacks!" Goku said cheerfully, "I still feel more like sleepin' in this than walkin around in it though. It's like I'm wearing my futon."

"Oniisan, have you seen Paragas?" Bura kept her voice hushed.

"Of course not. He isn't invited; his son's only here because Brolli's a part of the royal guard." Vegeta brushed the topic away, "As uncomfortable as I am having to deal with Brolli, he's far more preferable than the outright vitriol that radiates off of Paragas."

"We think he's planning to kill Tousan."

"What?" a nerve was struck, "To what ends? If Tousan dies, I'll become king. Is he planning on killing the entire family? Not to mention Paragas is far from strong enough to even hope to take Tousan in a fight."

"Poison."

"Poi..." Vegeta spun around and ran for the back kitchen, Bura and Goku hot on his trail. The ouji swung the doors open, "STOP!"

The entire bevy of chefs, a little over a dozen in all, turned their attention the prince.

"I have reason to believe an outside source has contaminated the area. I need everything here to be tested for poisoning immediately."

Worry clouded the room.

"Your highness, poison?" the head chef asked, tentative.

"Has Paragas come though here?" Vegeta was already taking control of the conversation.

"No. No one outside of the staff is allowed in here, you know that, Prince Vegeta." another of the chefs offered.

"Have you seen the king then?" Bura asked.

"He came back here to get a couple wine glasses for the Queen and himself, but that was over a half hour ago and we haven't seen him since." a third chef responded.

Vegeta's throat felt dry, "Thank you." he turned and left.

"What now?" the nervousness was spreading to Bura.

"I don't know. It's possible they turned in early, but...dammit! I wasn't paying attention to Tousan and Kaasan!" Vegeta angrily chastised himself.

"Hey Vegeta? You alright?" a familiar concerned voice came from his side. The ouji looked up to see Raditz standing there, flanked on either side by Vejitto and Gogeta.

"There's trouble, I just don't know to what degree yet." the prince responded, "I might need you three to make a distraction so I can slip out of here without alerting any suspicion."

Raditz glanced down at Goku and felt the weird sort of vibe you get seeing someone from a faded, long-ago memory, "This person..?" he looked down at him with suspicion.

"Oh not you too!" Bura rolled her eyes, not paying attention to Raditz's reaction, which instead of what Bura had expected actually turned out to be one of curiosity.

"Ossu?" Goku offered a smile.

It was the way this person held himself. Sure, there were lots of saiyajin with voices like that, but something was striking Raditz funny about him.

"Kakarrotto." Raditz announced, throwing caution to the wind.

Goku only stared back without any reaction to the word, "Weh?"

"I figured it couldn't be true." he sighed, standing back up and feeling partly embarrassed, "You can't blame a guy for trying though."

"What's a Kakarrotto?"

"My younger brother. We lost him on a vacation a long time ago; he'd wandered off and his ki was so weak Tousan, Kaasan, and I were never able to find him. When I saw you out there in the ring earlier today, I actually almost convinced myself that you were him. But you're so strong, there's no way..." he trailed off.

"Oh, I'm sorry I-UWAAHHH!" Goku stumbled back, attracting a bit of unwanted attention in doing so, "Y-you can tell-p-past my costume?"

"But I worked so hard!" Bura exclaimed, hurt that Raditz could tell who Goku was.

"You'd have to have completely ignored the tournament today to not notice who you are, or you'd have to be the overly-romantic type who's easily distracted by flouncy outfits like Vegeta and Brolli are to be unable to tell you're the same guy from before." Raditz snorted.

"Your reality must be intensely boring." Vegeta glared at Raditz.

"It is it is! Lackey-kun's the King of Dullsland, which makes Vejitto-kun and Gogeta-kun the Dukes of Randomston." Turles appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

"Which makes you..?" Raditz asked tiredly.

"Why, I'm not sure; though I'm partial towards the Captain of Madness, myself." he smirked back, "Vegeta-san, you were saying, about a distraction?"

"Not entirely sure I want you involved in that." the ouji paled.

Goku watched Turles with surprise. It was still a slightly surreal experience to see someone who looked so similar to himself.

"Well don't you look a bit ill-dressed, considering?" Turles chuckled at Goku, who took a few steps back.

"You let him alone." Vegeta snarled, holding an arm out between them.

"Want to find out if the long-lost contestant is your long-lost brother, Lackey-kun? We could always take a few blood samples and find out quite easily."

"NO NO! No needles!" Goku's heart leapt into his chest as he backed up further, waving his arms in the air only to have someone grab a hold of his wrists.

"Princess, is that detestable space pirate bothering you?" Brolli whispered into his ear, "Would you like me to do something about him?"

"Um, ah...?" Goku swallowed heavily, nervous. This situation was becoming more and more unusual, "I have never had attention like this before."

"I find that hard to believe." Brolli spoke sincerely.

"V-Veggie-tah!"

"DROP THOSE WRISTS, FIEND!" Vegeta ordered, heroism surging through him.

"Heh-heh-heh, that elaborate costume's got them both under its spell; you're a madam of illusions, Bura." Turles grinned Cheshire-cat style, "How much egg would be on Brolli's face if he knew the truth."

"I really did not think this plan through well." Bura groaned. She turned back to face the four guards, "Anyway, as we were saying before, yes, please please provide a distraction. The king may be in terrible danger and we've got to get there ahead of Paragas."

"Not to worry, Bu~rah!" Vejitto gave her a thumbs-up.

"No one will have known you were gone." Gogeta gave her two thumbs-up.

"Everyone! Prepare yourselves for a set of feats and hands unlike any you have ever seen!" Vejitto whipped out a microphone while Gogeta snapped his fingers, causing the room to darken outside of the spotlight that now alit over the two fusions.

"But first we'll need a volunteer from the audience!" Gogeta grinned as they both pretended to scour the group, each holding a hand to his forehead as if to shade from the light, "Now who could it be?"

"Who would it be?"

"Ahh! Over here! Over here!" Turles waved his hand in the air as if he were in class, "Pick me!"

"I know! YOU!" Vejitto pointed to Raditz, who stood beside Turles.

"WHAT?!" Raditz exclaimed, having a horrible feeling about this.

"Ohhh! How lucky!" Turles teased, "I wish it'd been me."

"I wish it'd been you too!" Raditz snapped back at him.

"Please step up on stage, don't be shy." Gogeta motioned Raditz up the stairs that suddenly existed to the stage that equally had not been there prior to the past few seconds.

"Dammit..." Raditz begrudgingly climbed the stairs as he watched Vegeta hustle Bura and Goku out the side door. Brolli was seated in the corner of the room, facing the wall, feeling dejected, "This better be worth it."

* * *

"TOUSAN! KAASAN!" Vegeta hollered as he closed in on the royal hall where the king and queen's private room was situated. As he got closer he could see his mother standing in the doorway with a frustrated look on her face.

"Okaasan!" Bura cried out, relieved, "You're OK!"

"Of course I'm OK. Why wouldn't I be?" Rutabaga, or Ruby to those close to her, was surprised at such a reaction.

"Where's Tousan?" Vegeta asked, panic spread across his features.

"That's what I've been asking myself. He left for the kitchen to go bring back some of the vintage wine and he still hasn't come back." she said, irritated. Ruby looked over at the third person her son and daughter had brought with them, "Oh! A fairytale princess!"

"O-ossu." Goku wasn't even sure how to respond anymore.

"I know, right?" a big grin plastered across Vegeta's face as he pointed to Goku, "Bura did all the costume work though, with her magic."

"Cinderella then? Or Sleeping Beauty?"

"I think I really could use some sleep now." Goku shifted around, confused. He reached up and removed the mask and wig, dropping them to the ground, "Lots 'n lots a sleep!"

"OH! It's the tournament champion!" the queen was surprised, "Bura, you're really good at this. It would've taken me at least three or four guesses!"

"Uwaii~ perferal vision I missed you." Goku rubbed his eyes.

"Peripheral vision, Goku-chan." Bura corrected.

"Yeah, that." Goku sat down, causing the layers of his costume to flair out around him. Now that he was away from the adrenaline-pumping ballroom, his internal clock was beginning to catch up. It must be around 10pm, no 11pm at least back home. As the sort to fall asleep a little after 8 in the evening, being up so late was not such a good thing, "Sleepy~"

"Whoa! Not now!" Vegeta tried to pull him back up on his feet, "Where's this coming from? You weren't drugged were you?"

"Uh-uh, just sleepy." Goku gave a tired smile back only to let out a sudden yelp as Vegeta picked him up off the floor, "Whoawhoawhoa!"

"Vegeta, he wants to go to bed. Let him to go bed." his mother pointed out.

"I'm keeping him." the ouji stated.

"Wuh?" Goku looked over at Vegeta, baffled.

"That's fine. I don't care. Now if he wants to go to sleep, you let him go to sleep."

Vegeta huffed, then turned and kicked open the door to his own bedroom suite, walked inside and dumped Goku onto the bed, "Stay, and let no one of suspicious manner enter." the prince ordered, then left a completely befuddled Goku behind and locked the door on his way out.

Bura zapped the left-behind wig and mask back out of existence. She then zapped her heels, replacing them with more practical flats in order to up her running speed, "Come on Oniisan, let's go!" she shouted before dashing off.

"Right behind you!" Vegeta shouted, racing off.

"They left without even telling me what that was about." the queen sighed. She turned around and closed the door before going back to bed herself.

* * *

Paragas could not believe his luck as he stood there, lurking in the shadows while watching the intruder and the unusual creature she'd rode in on sneak about the guest hall.

"Goku-sa? Goku-sa?" Chi-Chi called out. The nauseous feeling in her gut had tripled on her way back; she couldn't help but feel awful things were happening to poor sweet innocent Goku-san who only wanted to be fed and practice his martial arts against challenging opponents. What if without his friends here, that creepy prince had come back again tonight; held Goku-san down against his will and performed all sorts of lecherous acts on him. If Goku-san had been harmed...Chi-Chi laid one hand on the handle of the sheathed bashō fan she'd brought with her that hung off a belt on her hip. If she had to take down this Vegeta in battle to get Goku-san back, she'd do it.

A burp excluded from nearby.

Chi-Chi saw the door to the kitchen they'd eaten in the previous day was ajar, "Goku-sa?" she approached it and went inside only to find King Bejito seated there, looking pale.

"Oh, whatsherface, hello." he stood up. The empty wine glass in his hand slipped from his grip and shattered on the floor between them, "Could you tell the room to stop changing colors, it's really giving me a splitting headache." he took a step forward and promptly passed out, hitting the ground with an unceremonious thud.

"K-King Bejito? Mister?" Chi-Chi stared down at the prone form as fear began to grow within her, "HEY! YOU! Are you alright?" she shouted, only thinking later how ridiculous it was to ask such a question when the person being asked clearly was not. Chi-Chi sniffed the air and smelled something in addition to the leftover scent of stale alcohol. It was the smell of the rat-traps. The smell of, "Poison?"

"MURDER!" a strange man Chi-Chi had never seen before appeared in the doorway, pointing at her.

"What?" her eyes went wide.

Paragas stared at her with vicious victory on his face. He held out his hands and formed two small balls of ki before throwing them at her. The ki balls altered shape and wrapped tight around Chi-Chi's wrists like handcuffs, "You broke in here and tried to kill our beloved King with poison!"

"WHAT?!"

"I'm placing you under arrest, intruder." Paragas rubbed his hands together.

"Under who's order!?"

"Why, mine. Now that you've killed Bejito, I'm going to inherit the throne. And as if it weren't apparent to you yet, Miss Criminal, I'm no where near as lenient as he was."

"Stop right there!" an unfamiliar female voice shouted.

They turned to see Bura standing there, still in her mermaid-esque gown, though not breathing nearly as heavily as he thought she would be.

"Paragas! Where's my father!" Vegeta yelled, his ki aura rising up around him.

"I can't believe I'm relieved to see you." Chi-Chi cried out.

"Why, see for yourself, prince." Paragas stepped to the side to reveal Bejito on the floor.

"TOUSAN!" both Vegeta and Bura cried out at once as they ran to the king's side.

"You'll find I have apprehended the criminal behind all this."

"You dirty liar!" Chi-Chi snapped at him.

"And do you deny that you broke into this castle illegally on that, whatever that is!" Paragas pointed at Kinto'un.

"Mmphp mph!" Kinto'un shouted at Paragas.

"C-cute." Vegeta and Bura stared at the puffy yellow cloud.

"Is that yours?" Bura asked Chi-Chi, "I've never seen anything like it."

"Kinto'un is Goku-san's."

Vegeta stifled a small cry and covered his nose to prevent any gushing blood, "Of, of course it is." he managed to finally say.

Bejito let out a hacking cough as he regained the interest of the room.

"Tousan!" Vegeta exclaimed, returning to serious matters he was now ashamed at even temporarily having forgotten.

"He's ALIVE?!" Paragas was horrified.

"We've got to get him to the hospital ward!" Bura said as she and Vegeta tried to pull the king to his feet.

"Well in that case, I suppose I'll be taking the prisoner to the holding facility." Paragas stated.

"But I didn't kill him!"

"But you TRIED."

"NO I DIDN'T!" she tried to kick free.

"Chi-Chi?"

Her eyes went to the doorway, "Goku-saAAAHH!" she went almost as pale as Bejito now looked. Goku was standing there wearing the most over-elaborate princess ball-gown she'd never seen. It looked like something out of Rose of Versailles.

"Chi-Chi what's goin' on?"

"That's my question!" she exclaimed, terrified.

"Oh! Um, I was sleeping, but then I sensed your ki and went to find you."

"Your CLOTHES, Goku-san, your CLOTHES!" her patience was very tight at the moment.

"Ahh...I went to a maskeraide party, undercover." Goku flushed, "E-everyone was really nice to me."

"You are coming back home with me tomorrow, aren't you Goku-san?" Chi-Chi asked, her voice shaky.

"Course I am! My home's my home. I can't just stay around here leeching off'a everybody in the castle."

"WHAT?!" it was Vegeta's turn to panic.

"Well it's true." Goku smiled at him. Kinto'un flew over to Goku, who wrapped his arms around the cloud, "I am kinda leeching right now. Hey Kinto'uuu~n."

"Mpmph! Mmph mph!"

"It wouldn't be leeching if you were my oujo!" Vegeta grabbed one of Goku's hands, "How about it? I could make you my oujo. You'll be the happiest saiyajin in the entire kingdom!"

"You creepy assaults-people-in-their-sleep ouji! Pervert prince! I've had Goku-san with me my whole life and never once got the chance to ask him to be my prince! You can't just swoop in and take him! I won't let you!" Chi-Chi cried out.

"Well you're not much of an opportunist if you've had an entire 18 years worth of time and still didn't ask!" Vegeta retorted, "And I do NOT assault people in their sleep!"

"Um, I, ah, ano, eto..." Goku kept looking back and forth between them, full of anxiety.

"Still dying over here." Bejito croaked out.

"OH! Tousan!" Vegeta helped him up, "You'll pay for this, Paragas."

"I don't know what makes you think that. I'm not the one behind it; if I were to kill yon King, I'd have choked him or beaten him into the ground. Only someone far too weak to do so like this young lady here would have to resort to poisoning his food and drink to knock him off."

Vegeta lifted the king up onto his back, then hovered up into the air and powered up before flying down the hallway towards the hospital wing with Bura at his side.

"MWAHAHA. They've spent so much time arguing with you; how much precious time has been wasted. It's very likely King Bejito may not live to see the sunrise." Paragas laughed. He grinned wickedly at Chi-Chi, "Now, let's see how you like a cold hard prison cell, Miss Breaking-and-Entering."

A ki blast whizzed past Paragas' head, shaving off a chunk of his hair on its way before burrowing a hole into the wall behind him. He turned to see Goku standing there in a battle pose.

"I'm not letting you put Chi-Chi in jail. She's not the one who tried to kill him. You are!"

"Ah, young champion. I thought we had an understanding. I suppose all those soft buttery feelings of Vegeta's went to your head." Paragas stomped onto the ground, letting loose one of the floor tiles which he promptly grabbed in mid-air and flung at Goku, who bent backwards to dodge it. The tile stuck mid-way through the door behind him, "Go back to bed, champ. By interfering you're doing no good to your friend's chances of getting out of here. Think about it. You defeat me today and run away with her now, and I'll get the last word. I'll tell them how you were in on it with her, and when the king dies, and he will die, I'll gain control of the throne and set the saiyajin armada on Gyu Kingdom. It won't be just the two of you who'll die; it'll be your friends, and your families, and every last person there. I'll have Gyu Kingdom burned to the ground and every final bit of it erased clear off the map."

Goku stared back at him.

"OR, you could take my advice-and you should be grateful to me, I'm being an awfully good sport to you, all things considered-and take me on legally. Saiyajin court proceedings are notoriously brief you know."

"Chi-Chi..." Goku's hands fell to his sides.

"Goku-sa..." she felt her eyes watering up, "All I wanted to do is make sure you were safe! I was so scared they were going to hurt you."

"I'll figure something out, I'll get you outta this, I promise!" Goku blurted out as Paragas walked by, dragging Chi-Chi behind him.

The depth behind those last two words put her heart at ease. Promises had a child's importance to Goku-san; he didn't make many, but he had yet to break one.

"I'll get you outta this, and I'll prove Pair-uh-gas is behind it, and I'll get my final round and then we can go home together with the prize money and have the biggest best dinner ever!" Goku exclaimed.

"Goku-san..." Chi-Chi teared up, smiling back at him. Her confidence which had shattered at the sight of Goku in that costume was now building back up now that he had reassured her that she hadn't lost him at all. Paragas turned a corner, pulling Chi-Chi behind him and causing her to vanish from Goku's line of sight.

"Kinto'un," Goku held the cloud close to his chest, desperate to fix this, yet completely unaware of how, "what am I gonna do?"

* * *

1:47 AM 9/16/2012

**~*End of Part 3*~**


	4. Interruptions and Deceptions

1:59 AM 9/16/2012

**Disclaimer: Dragon Ball Z is a property of Akira Toriyama, Toei Animation, and Shueisha**

**Summary: When a lack of updates and an overly playful Goku drive Vegeta into temporary hiding within the bowels of Capsule Corp, he decides to take out his frustration on an old typewriter and come up with his own movie plotline. With a morbidly curious Bulma to referee, what kind of dastardly adventure will the prince come up with?**

**Part 4: "Interruptions and Deceptions"**

* * *

"Heh-heh~" Vegeta sat leaning over his typewriter with what Bulma deemed a ridiculously self-satisfied look on his face.

"I was going to call you on this earlier, but I didn't want to interrupt how "on a roll" you were." she spoke up. The words soured Vegeta's mood, "There's no way sending Son-kun undercover would've gone that smoothly. You've seen how uncomfortable he gets when you try to get him to wear stuff; he wouldn't just be running around in a big costume like that completely unaffected by it."

The prince turned to face her, "I see your ploy," he smirked, regaining ground, "but since this story is an Alternate Universe, who's to say if within the confines of this AU that such things in fact don't bother Muffin."

"Point made." Bulma sighed.

"To be honest with you, I'm actually still holding back quite a bit," a grin broke onto his face, "Yes, things could've gone quite juicier for Cupcake if I weren't being so restrictive. So many delicious things I could have done and could yet still do." he wiggled his fingers over the keys only to suddenly let out a muffled grunt as a pillow came seemingly out of nowhere and beaned him in the head. Vegeta dramatically fell over onto his side.

A bundle of giggles came from above.

Vegeta threw the pillow off of himself and looked up, irritated, to find Goku seated on the edge of his bed, "Kakarrotto." he flatly stated.

"Veggie-tah, I got bored of waiting, so now I'm back." he smiled, his tail flicking about in the air, "Let's play!"

"I'm kind of in the middle of something over here, Dewdrop."

Goku hopped off the bed and sat down next to Vegeta, "Whatcha doin?" he peered over at the typewriter.

"I'm crafting a story."

"Can I help?"

"NO."

"Bulma's helping." Goku pouted, looking over at her. Bulma was still going over the pages.

"That's different." the ouji stated.

Goku leaned over and rested his chin on the prince's shoulder, "How?"

Sweat began to form inside Vegeta's gloves, _::Close...so close...::_

"Aw, Son-kun just wants to help, Vegeta." Bulma was incredibly amused by the two of them.

"Yeah Veggie-ta, help me." he could feel the words beside his ear. So. Damn. Cute.

"AAAGH!" Vegeta promptly pushed Goku off of him, knocking him onto his back.

"Hey!" Goku whined from behind him, "Veggie-tah that wasn't nice!"

The ouji reached over and promptly took a huge swig of iced tea that he'd set aside, "You're lucky you're currently stronger than I am!" he pointed at Goku, his face flushed, "The things I would do to you..." Vegeta trailed off.

Goku watched him curiously. His eyes lit up, "Does that mean we're gonna spar now?"

"What? NO!" the prince's attention returned to his story as his fingers hit the keys once more.

* * *

His mind still in that sleepy haze in-between unconsciousness and wakefulness, Goku nuzzled deeper into the pillow his head rested upon. There was something fiddling with his hair, but it was going about it so gently and soothingly that it didn't matter to him what it was. His eyes remained closed as he let out a cute little yawn. The sound of a breath hitching at that noise lightly tampered with Goku's sleep, but he was kept under the surface anyway.

These soft brushes continued on for a few minutes more before the cramping in Goku's tail started up. He had most likely slept on it wrong and this immediately caused his tail to thrash about, trying to get the feeling of pins and needles out. Goku opened his eyes to be greeted with an exhausted-looking prince, "Oh! Veggie-tah!"

"Mmm, my balm against the night. How are you this morning, Buttercream?" he smiled tiredly.

"Um, OK. I'm OK." Goku sat up, trying to get his bearings as he recalled the events of the past night. He realized he was still in his costume, and he was right; it did make for comfortable sleepwear. The prince's bed was obscenely large, so there was plenty of room to move around, even with wearing something like this, "Oh! Veggie-ta! Your Tousan-"

"-he's alive."

Goku let out a sigh of relief.

"But he's in a coma."

"EH!?"

"Not to worry, he'll recover. The king's tougher than that. And we've got our best doctors on it." Vegeta said, partly trying to convince himself, "For now, we should have breakfast while we figure out who we can have defend your friend in court." he got up and walked over to a nearby wall-closet, which upon opening was revealed to be a wall-refrigerator and food cabinet.

"Oh! Neat." Goku was surprised he hadn't noticed the hidden well of food before.

"We don't have much time, so I apologize that I can't have our chefs cook you a proper breakfast."

"Aw Veggie-ta, this is fine." Goku smiled as he walked over to the fridge and peered inside, "A lot of the time I catch my own breakfast, so it's not like I'm used to fancy meals."

"I still wish I could serve you something with a little more thought put into it." Vegeta sighed.

They carried a bundle of food with them over to a nearby table, sat down, and dug in. Goku was pleasantly surprised to find Vegeta was just as messy and ravenous an eater as he himself was.

Vegeta finished his meal by chugging down a big glass of juice, "Ahh." he felt a little better, "Goku."

"Uhn." he'd just finished up his last blueberry muffin and followed it with some milk.

"I might need you to do a little more undercover work, to help gather evidence against Paragas."

"Whaaa? But-"

"-with a costume that's easier to move around in, of course."

"-o-oh." Goku still wasn't so sure about this. Everyone had paid him so much attention when he was undercover at the masquerade; and the attention was intoxicating, "I'm not so sure if-"

"-believe me, if there were another way, I'd take it." the mostly-sleepless night was evident on Vegeta's face by the haunted bags under his eyes, "I'd much prefer you remaining safe and hidden here with me until Paragas is safely behind bars, but it isn't going to work out that way."

A knock came at the door. Vegeta got up to open it.

"Hey." Bura was back in her casual saiyajin armor, "Good morning everybody. Who's ready for some magical transformation sequences?"

* * *

_::I'm enjoying this far more than I should be.:: _Vegeta admitted to himself as Goku let out little yelps of surprise every time Bura zapped a costume change on him.

Goku wondered when they were going to make a decision on his next undercover outfit; he felt like they'd gone through two dozen completely different ones already, and each time he got hit by the clothes-beam it gave him a weird pleasant little shock that sent his heart racing and as a result it hadn't fully calmed down yet, "Um, V-Veggie-tah?" he called out, flushed.

"Hm, no." Vegeta said to Bura.

Another zap.

"iie!" Goku yelped, almost buckling over this time, "Veggie-tahh! Are we done yet?"

"Almost." the ouji replied, then whispered something to Bura. She nodded and changed the costume again.

Goku shut his eyes and bit his tongue as another shockwave ran through him.

"I like it." Vegeta said, confident, "I like it a lot."

Goku opened his eyes, hesitant.

"Oh, that one thing there." Vegeta whispered to Bura.

"*Zap*"

"IIIEE!" Goku squealed; that last shock was especially heavy, "Ih, is there way to do this that doesn't m-make it feel so, like that?" he stumbled forward before collapsing onto the bed for support.

"It's probably your tail." Bura pointed out.

"W-what?"

"The way you let it just hang like that, haven't you ever trained it?"

"Train...my tail?" Goku looked over at the now sweetly-decorated long fluffy appendage.

"Yeah, if you don't train your tail-which can take years, by the way-it'll remain the biggest weak spot. Untrained saiyajin tails are super-sensitive pleasure-centers. That's probably what you kept feeling."

"Ohhh." Goku made a mental note to learn how to "train" his tail, something that was probably easier said than done. Goku looked down at the outfit he was wearing; it was just as overly-detailed and adorable as the last one, "Um..."

"You do the "cute" thing really, really well." Bura responded.

"She's right. Amazingly, heart-poundingly well. It suits you. In fact, my heart's pounding right now looking at you." Vegeta added.

"Ano...what am I supposed to do like this, if there isn't any party going on?" Goku asked.

Vegeta folded his arms, "I'm glad you asked that question. I need you to get information out of Brolli."

"EHHHH!?" Goku exclaimed, "...who's that?"

"WAAGH!" Vegeta and Bura fell over.

"Why would you respond like that if you don't know who-nevermind." Vegeta irritatedly waved it away, "Brolli's one of my guards; that really tall guy who danced with you."

"Ohh." Goku blinked, unfazed, "I still am not sure what you expect me to do."

"Use the charm you clearly had over him yesterday evening to get him to tell you the truth about Paragas' evil scheme, and to record it with this." The ouji pinned a micro-recording device under one of the many layers of Goku's outfit.

"With this disguise he'll tell you about it no problem." Bura boasted.

"I know I've got the urge to spill the beans to you, and I didn't even do anything." Vegeta volunteered.

"Ehhhh." Goku shifted around, "Then why doesn't Veggie-tah trick Brolli."

"I am. Using you."

"No. I mean, why isn't Veggie-tah the agent?"

"Well that wouldn't work. Brolli's interest in me is due to my sheer royal magnetism. I'd have to go in costumeless."

"..."

"And by that I don't mean I'd be going in naked! I mean I'd be wearing my regular clothes." he huffed.

* * *

"Kakarrotto, your presence here is really messing up my rhythm." Vegeta pulled away from his typewriter.

"Has the whole story been like this? Veggie-tah stickin' me in gushy outfits and makin' me do stuff?" Goku ignored the ouji and spoke to Bulma.

"No, actually he's been pretty good about restraining himself; at least he was during Parts 1 and 2." she responded, "Part 1 was an adventure tale, Part 2 was a Marital Arts Tournament,"

"Ooh!" Goku peeked over at the older pages in the pile.

"It wasn't until around Part 3 that he kind of lost his grip on himself and we plunged into 70's shoujo manga territory."

"Veggie-tah couldn't help himself." Goku grimaced.

"No, no he couldn't."

"Will you stop talking about me like I'm not here?!" the ouji exclaimed. He attempted to ignore them and returned to his typing.

* * *

"Anyway, I'm just too close to the heart of the matter for Brolli **not** to get suspicious of me. My father is poisoned and lapsed into a coma and I start asking him questions about what his father was up to last night? With that sharp wit of his he'd immediately catch on that I suspected Paragas of trying to kill Tousan." Vegeta explained.

"But if this Brolli guy really likes you, I mean, you don't think he'd side with you over his Tousan if he believed you?"

"Brolli never has cared for Paragas..." Bura trailed off.

"It's a blood-thicker-than-water thing, Goku. I'm afraid it just wouldn't work." Vegeta shook his head in dismay.

* * *

"Hey~! You're calling me by my name in this? Neat!" Goku clasped his hands together, excited, "Call me it now. Do it." his tail wagged behind him as he pointed to himself, "I get good feelings when Veggie-ta calls me by my name."

"That's not your real name."

"It's my real name to me." he rocked back and forth where he sat.

"I'm only calling you that in the story because I don't know your "true identity" yet. And neither do you."

"Come on, it's only two sillybles." Goku teased, "Say it~"

"Will you let me continue the story if I do?"

A quick nod.

Vegeta sighed tiredly, "Goku."

"YAY!"

"See, that wasn't so difficult." Bulma chuckled at him.

"But it's not his name. His name's Kakarrotto."

"You've haven't even been calling him that lately yourself; all I've heard recently from you are the various foodstuff-nicknames you've been referring to him as. Muffin, cupcake, butternut, honeysuckle, and all those other ones I can't remember off the top of my head, but I can guarantee there are at least several more of."

"She's right, Veggie-ta." Goku agreed.

"Can you both please let me continue?!" Vegeta snapped.

* * *

One long, long glass of water later, and the prince was ready to continue, "That's why it has to be you, Goku. You're a stranger here. In fact, he doesn't even know who you are-and he's not going to."

Goku still appeared skeptical, "But Veggie-ta, even with the wig." he pointed to the one he wore, which was different than the one from the previous day. This one better fit the more casual costume he was wearing.

* * *

"I can't even see the costume from out here and even I know there's no way it's something casual."

"Kakarrotto. Let me type." Vegeta responded through gritted teeth.

* * *

"Even with the wig," he said again, hesitant, "he'll recognize me by face from the tournament and know he's been had."

"A simple hooded cloak will take care of that. Enough to shade your eyes yet show the rest of your face.

"Alright, but when you clothes-beam it in, can you do so without zapping it directly on-top of me so I don't gotta feel that weird feeling in myIIIE!"

"There we go." Bura said.

Vegeta gave her a thumbs-up, "Perfect!"

Goku picked himself back up off the floor, his legs still shaking, "Owww..."

"Now, Brolli passes by this hall on his rounds roughly an hour from now." the ouji instructed, "Here's what I want you to do..."

* * *

"How unusual is this."

"Ohhh. Wha...?" Chi-Chi opened her eyes as she sat up on the jail cell cot. One of the soldiers stood on the other side of the bars, looking in on her inquisitively. Upon further inspection, she noticed the striking resemblance he had to Goku. This man had a deeper tan, and medium-brown hair, and no real pants to speak of, but other than that the physical similarities were remarkable.

"We typically don't have prisoners. What're you in for, if you don't mind me asking?" it was a sneakier, mischievous-sounding take on Goku's voice, and it was now that Chi-Chi noticed the laid back look in his eyes and the Cheshire-cat smile. She decided that if Goku's animal was a monkey, than this guy's was definitely a cat.

"I've been falsely imprisoned by some guy Goku-san called Pair-uh-gas, when Pair-uh-gas is the one who should be behind these bars!"

"So Paragas poisoned the King..." Turles thought outloud, "That's kind of predictable, but it figures."

"You believe me?"

"Of course I do. He had the means-unaccounted for throughout the entire party as he wasn't even invited; and he had the motive-with Bejito dead Paragas can steal the throne out from under the royal family."

"But how? He's not even related, right?"

Turles smirked, "There's a way to get around that; a kind of legal coup, shall we say. Paragas himself isn't strong enough to do it, but his son is. If he can get Brolli to challenge Vegeta in a special martial arts battle for the throne, and if Brolli were to win, he would become the new prince, his relatives the new royal family," Turles motioned over to Chi-Chi to finish.

"And Paragas would become the new king." she murmured in shock.

"Bingo! The lady's quite perceptive." he lightly applauded.

"So, how about getting the lady out of this hole, huh?" Chi-Chi asked.

"I would if I could, but it'd jeopardize your chances of beating him in the battle that matters most." Turles frowned, "What you need is an attorney, and while he may not be an actual attorney, I do know someone who's level-headed and blunt enough to take the case and win."

* * *

Bardock let out a sneeze. He grimaced down at his glass of orange juice, which was now 2% mucus, "Crud."

The doorbell rang.

"I don't like that timing." he stared at the door with suspicion, "Hey! Raditz! Can you get that?"

"Sure!" Raditz called back, walked up to the front door, and opened it to reveal Turles standing there.

"Ohayo~!"

Raditz promptly shut the door, suddenly feeling sick.

"Who was it?"

"Nobody, just the wind."

"Lackey-kun! Open the door or I'll huff and puff and blow the house down!"

"Oh, it's that guy." Bardock groaned.

"Yeah, it is." Raditz said with equal dismay.

"Well at least it's you he's here to see."

"Surprisingly, that's not true for today at least." Turles now sat across the table from him, startling Bardock and causing him to nearly drop his juice glass, "Actually, sir, I'm here to see you."

"Why are you callin' me sir?"

"Any reason why I shouldn't? What would you prefer?"

"For you to leave."

"Well that isn't an option."

"Hnn.." Bardock glowered at him, "What do you want?"

"You sir, have the makings of an ace attorney!"

"...what."

"Exactly!" Turles smirked, sitting back in Raditz's chair, "A young lady has been falsely imprisoned; accused by the actual culprit of committing his crime."

"And you're coming to me because?"

"The lady's close friend, the one she broke into this very facility to visit in the dead of night, is your long-lost younger son." Turles concluded.

Bardock watched him skeptically, "Kakarrrotto is here?"

"The young man from Gyu Kingdom, the only saiyajin to enter the tournament, and the champion of said tournament-Son Goku-I have reason to believe is in actuality, Kakarrotto."

"...I'm listening."

"If Paragas' plan succeeds, an entire checklist of terrible things will go down; Paragas will use his son to gain access to the throne-Paragas will become king, the lady along with your son will remain imprisoned or killed. As she is their kingdom's princess, Gyu Kingdom will react to her life being taken and wage battle against the Saiyajin Kingdom. Many more people will die. So basically, sir, I'm enlisting you to help prevent a war."

Bardock stared back, a little stunned, "That's...a strangely tall order coming from you."

"So, will you defend her in court?"

Bardock folded his arms and looked away stubbornly, "I'm not a lawyer or an attorney. And it's not like I care about any of this, but it would be bothersome to have to move away and find a new home if Paragas were to overthrow Bejito and mess everything up." he turned back to face Turles, "Yeah, alright. I'll do it."

"Excellent!" Turles clasped his hands together.

Raditz looked on, a little disturbed, "Are, are you being helpful?" he asked Turles.

"Aw, Lackey-kun doesn't think I'm capable of aiding others?" Turles smirked back.

Raditz felt like slugging him back, "No, it's just that what you're doing, you're showing kindness."

The smirk dropped momentarily from his face, "I am not!"

"You are," this time it was Raditz's turn to smirk, "I bet you're probably as nice as Son Goku on the inside."

"I am NOT! Take it back Lackey-kun or I'll chop your hair off and feed it to my monster-plants!" Turles glowered up at him.

Bardock rolled his eyes, blocked out what both saiyajin were arguing about, and returned to his breakfast.

* * *

"Anyway, this is her."

The guard from before was back and the first thing Chi-Chi noticed about him was how much more frazzled he looked this time. His eyes were closed, his arms were folded, and the fur on his tail was standing on its ends. There was also an upset frown on his face where that Cheshire cat smirk had been. She was about to ask him if he was feeling alright-which it did occur to her as odd seeing as she was the one in the jail cell-when two figures entered her line of vision.

The first was a beast of a guy with long spiky hair a shade that matched Goku's. The skintone was also an even match, but that was where the similarities ended. When the second man made his appearance, Chi-Chi let out a gasp; while the eyes were different, and the coloring didn't match-this hair was a deep teal and the skintone was a different shade as well-everything else from the hair to the body-type to the way he held himself screamed "Goku".

"Young lady, I present to you Son Goku's father," Turles motioned to Bardock, then to Raditz, "And Son Goku's rather imperceptive older brother."

Raditz struck him a glare for that.

"Hey." Bardock said, begrudgingly, "I don't know anything about law, but I guess I'm gonna help you so I don't have to move to some other kingdom if Paragas takes over. It's not as though I'm doing this for you or anything. You're a complete stranger to me after all."

Chi-Chi sweatdropped, kind of amused, and a little relieved. Bardock struck her as a rougher, more obstinate Goku who probably didn't have as many close friends as the latter did, but just the fact that Goku had a family here; it meant that in the heart-wrenching scenario where Goku were to remain in the Saiyajin Kingdom, he could do so living with his actual family instead of with Prince Vegeta, "I am so grateful you exist."

"That's a weird response, but OK." Bardock lifted an eyebrow.

"Forgive me for saying this, but your creepy prince has totally been digging his claws into Goku-san ever since the night before the tournament." Chi-Chi explained. She could see concern flash across Bardock's eyes, as though the adjective alone was enough for him to know which of the two Oujisama brothers she was referring to, "Goku-san's with him now; the prince has probably been using him for all sorts of things and Goku-san's completely unaware because of how naive and trusting he is."

"I..." Bardock bit his tongue. So what? It wasn't his problem what was up with Kakarrotto-if indeed Son Goku was Kakarrotto.

"You weren't at that costume party last night, where you?"

"I don't like parties." it came out in a sour tone that practically echoed Goku's, and again Chi-Chi was amazed at these little similarities, "Of course I didn't go."

"I wasn't there either-I was on my way here from my home kingdom-but Goku-san was."

Bardock narrowed his eyes at both Raditz and Turles; both of whom had attended the party.

"It was..a very ill-fitting costume, it didn't match Kakarrotto's character as I interpret him." Turles commented.

"From what I gathered, Princess Bura designed it, and Prince Vegeta-and, Brolli-really, really liked it." Raditz grimaced.

"..." Bardock's arms folded tighter against his chest as he looked away and his frown grew sterner.

Chi-Chi could tell he wanted to help; he knew Vegeta better than she did and he wanted to go rescue Goku-san something awful; but it wasn't in his character to stick his neck out for people. Caring went against his attitude, but she knew he cared anyway. Goku-san was his child after all.

Bardock finally snapped and let out a string of curses in his native language, "Why do you people have to do this to me!" he then pointed at Raditz and Turles, " You two gather whatever evidence you need, I'm going to go get the other one before Vegeta gets the chance to do what we all know he wants to do to him."

_::The other one?::_ Chi-Chi sweatdropped as she watched Bardock storm out.

"Ah, Bardock-san, you might want to be careful. Vegeta-san's actually on our side in this." Turles called out.

"What?" Bardock spun around, staring at him incredulously.

"It was Kakarrotto who first learned of Paragas plan; he told Bura and Vegeta-san about it and they became his first line of defense against Paragas. From what I've learned they're even now trying to stop Paragas from making any further headway into his plan. While I support your concern for Kakarrotto's well-being, we unfortunately can't focus on Vegeta-san's treatment of him until after Paragas has been dealt with." Turles explained, not liking the temporary free pass they were giving Vegeta either.

Bardock grumbled, rubbing the space between his eyebrows in irritation, "Fine. What's next then?"

"We're vastly in need of updates. First we must reconvene with Vegeta-san and Bura and find out what they've learned. Afterward we will inform the Queen of our goings on; even though Bejito is temporarily out of the picture, she may be able to provide us with some help in planning our attack. Paragas is likely going to push this court case to the nearest possible date to get it out of the way as soon as possible. It would be to our benefit if we could get his son on our side. While Brolli isn't anyone's favorite person here, he is the most likely source of any new information regarding Paragas pre-meditated attempted murder seeing as they live under the same roof."

"So basically, what I was about to go do before, only a little less violent."

"Pretty much, yes."

"Ohh! I wanna go too." Chi-Chi made a pair of fists, frustrated.

"Ah, that reminds me, about Son Goku," Turles turned to face her, a little more like himself now than he was when he first arrived back at the cell, "He lets his tail just hang loose like that, is it simply that well-trained that he feels he doesn't even need to bother with the added protection of wrapping it around his waist?"

"Well-trained? Are you joking? That tail is Goku-san's only weak-spot. If I so much as grabbed it or gave it a light tug his energy would drain out of him and he'd fall over in pain. Isn't that normal?"

Turles gave his own tail a squeeze. He flinched lightly, but nothing else to speak of.

Chi-Chi stared back nervously and gave a hard swallow, "It's normal, right?"

"Yeah, that's why we have to train them. An adult saiyajin walking around without having ever trained his tail and letting it hang free where anyone could get a hold of it...it'd be like going into battle naked." Turles replied, "The whole appendage is one long fuzzy pleasure/pain receptor, depending on what you do to it." even the space pirate started to feel a bit worried about Goku, "But Vegeta-san doesn't know Son Goku's tail isn't trained, right? Vegeta-san doesn't know how hyper-sensitive it is?"

"Not that I'm aware of." Chi-Chi answered truthfully.

Turles, Raditz, and Bardock exchanged concerned looks before all three of them bolted from the room.

* * *

Goku's tail twitched behind him; aside from a few accessories it was mostly uncovered, and for the first time in a while for a brand new reason he was concerned about that. He watched as Bura and Vegeta planned things out; their tails wrapped around their waists. It didn't look at all comfortable, and kind of unfair to their tails. In his current undercover costume it didn't seem at all like Goku would even be able to get his tail to stay still around his waist even if he wanted to.

"Ohh!" Bura exclaimed, pressing a button her scouter, "He's just turning the corner at the far end of the hall! Goku-chan! Now's your chance!"

"Um, I am not sure if-"

"-and remember, no squeaking if you can help it!" she motioned him to the door.

Vegeta promptly gave Goku an impromptu embrace, then pushed him out into the hall, "Best of luck to you, oujo-chan!" he gave Goku a thumbs-up, then shut the door.

"Uwuh!?" Goku yelped, a layer of nervous sweat beginning to form on his skin, "Ohhhhh.." he tried to remain calm. It was gonna be alright. All he had to do was remember that this was all for the safety of his home village, to help prove Chi-Chi's innocence so she could be freed from prison, and to eventually get to martial arts battle against Vegeta for that prize money he needed to ensure his own future health, "Uh-o-Ossu!" he announced his presence as Brolli walked by. Goku's tail was thrashing about behind him now. It had been safely tucked underneath layers of clothing back at the party, but this costume had a hole in the back just for the appendage. Goku grabbed his tail and held it up against his chest defensively.

"..." Brolli paused mid-step and turned to see the mysterious stranger he had convinced himself after much disappointment that he would never see again. And here she was, standing there in the hallway in another impossibly-adorable outfit with her cute bangs and a hooded cloak concealing her eyes from him this time, "Princess!" Brolli exclaimed in surprise, embracing the mysterious stranger, "I thought you were gone forever; you left the ball early and I didn't even see you go, or get to wish you goodbye." there was genuine heartache in his voice.

"I'm, I'm sorry." a flash of conscience suddenly hit Goku in the form of Chi-Chi.

_::"Shame on you, Goku-san! You're playing with someone's feelings; for all you know he doesn't have any idea that his father's an attempted murderer."::_

"I missed you so dearly; you really did dance quite well. I've never had someone who's responded so understandably to me before."

Goku let out a cry as something suddenly jolted him and caused him to back up against the wall; Brolli was playing with his tail. Goku bit his tongue; it hurt and felt so weird. Unlike the clothes-beam zap, this was something softer and soothing, more deliberate and calculated with short unpredictable breaks along the way. He used his back to keep his feet grounded.

"You know, as a member of the nobility, I can give you a life just as plush and pampering as any Vejita could provide you. Only with me, you wouldn't be subjected to all the restrictions and tedium that come along with becoming royalty. You'll have all of the benefits of a princess with none of the fine print." Brolli cupped one hand around his mystery princess' cheek and gently ran his thumb across it, "Think it over. You really deserve something more. And I feel it would be worth noting," he lowered his voice to a warm hushed whisper, "I'm even stronger than Vejita."

This final bit of information sent Goku's eyes wide behind their hiding place, but not for any reason Brolli would guess, "How much?" he was barely able to hold the squeaking in, and Brolli gave him a perplexed look.

"Ah, I can't recall the exact math, but it's an embarrassingly large gap between us. Vejita's never once defeated me in a sparring match."

"O...ohh." Goku's battle-anxiety began to wake up, extending the conversation past where Vegeta and Bura had from the other side of the door already deemed a failed plan, "Then, the saiyajin who won the marital arts tournament yesterday...?"

"I could beat him no contest." Brolli smiled, gently letting go and turning to head back down the hallway to continue his rounds, "Not that I'm a participant in the tournament anyway, but if he wanted to track me down after he inevitably defeats Vejita, I wouldn't turn him away. It's also been a long time since I've had anyone challenging to fight."

Luckily for Goku's cover, the excited battle-grin on his face appeared after Brolli already had his back facing him and was too far out of sight to see the other saiyajin properly, "Heh-heh, heh-heh-heh...even stronger than Veggie-tah, huh? I'm getting excited! I wanna see about that."

"Goku-chan!" Bura whispered loudly, opening the door a crack, "Get in here!" she yanked him back inside and shut the door, upset, "What was all that?!"

"Is that guy really stronger than you, Veggie-ta?" Goku asked, eager.

Vegeta glowered and looked away.

"He **IS**."

"For **NOW**." Vegeta retorted, "Once I attain the legendary form of super saiyajin, I'll easily take the number one slot and crush him."

Goku blinked back, confused, "Super saiyajin?"

"Nevermind that, what happened to you out there?!"

"I think I got fondled, and then prop-positioned." he looked down at his tail, which still didn't feel quite right, "If the wall wasn't there, I was sure I was gonna fall over." Goku's face flushed with embarrassment, "No one's ever done anything like that to my tail before, it was way worse than Bura's clothes-beam! I didn't even understand half of what my tail was telling the rest'a my body!"

"Okay, this was a horrible plan; I don't know what I was thinking." Vegeta quickly put it out there.

"I'll say!" Goku exclaimed.

"I'm sorry about that, oujo-chan." the prince got down on one knee, "Forgive me." he gently took Goku's hand.

"I don't think my body's been touched and held this much outside of battle in my whole entire life." Goku shifted around uncomfortably, "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"It's because you're so utterly wonderful those around you can't contain themselves." Vegeta stood back up.

"...I'm still not sure how I feel about that."

A rapid, angry knock suddenly came at the door.

Bura peered out through the peephole, "Oh! It's Raditz's Tousan!" she said, surprised, "What's he doing here?"

"Zap Goku back, I'll deal with whatever he wants." Vegeta advised.

Bura shrugged and did so. Goku let out a yelp of pleasure-pain as the clothes-beam hit him and he moments later found himself back down to the grey tank-top and long white boxershorts he'd originally been stripped down to in Bura's bedroom-which was where the rest of his clothes currently remained.

Vegeta cleared his throat and opened the door, "May I help you?"

"I want my son back, NOW."

"What?"

"Bardock-san, that's not what we agreed on!" Turles sweatdropped from where he and Raditz stood off to the side.

"He's out in the hallway; I can see him from here." Vegeta pointed to Raditz.

"Not that one. The other one." Bardock glowered at him.

"You don't have another one."

"Yes, actually, I do. Right over there." Bardock pointed to Goku.

"Ossu?" Goku lightly tilted his head.

"What? Goku? Since when is he your offspring? As far as he and I are aware, he's an orphan."

"Who I accidentally lost one day years ago during a vacation."

"Considering your personality while that doesn't entirely surprise me I would still prefer it not to be true." Vegeta admitted, "And so! Until you have scientific proof that you're the father, I'm keeping him. Good day, sir." he swung the door closed only to have Raditz lunge and grab it before he could finish.

"Vegeta, listen, please. That's not why we're here. This is about Paragas." Raditz tried to explain.

"Oh." the ouji relaxed, "Well in that case, all three of you get in here and make sure the door is shut and locked behind you. I'm not letting any private information that could prove useful in the trial leak out of here."

* * *

"*KA-POW!*" this time the unsuspected pillow creamed Vegeta in the back of the back of the head, knocking him forward and into the typewriter with enough momentum to leave a temporary impression of the keys on his stomach. He spun around to face Goku, irritated, "What was that for?!"

"What **is** this?!" Goku exclaimed, visibly upset.

Vegeta looked at him with a serious face, "It's a story."

"*KA-POW!*" another pillow-bomb; this one with the force to throw Vegeta sideways and cause him to roll a couple feet.

"OW." the ouji stated.

"Vegeta, knock it off." Bulma reprimanded as she flipped the page.

"ME?!" he gawked at her, "**He's** the violent one here!"

"Why is Veggie-tah shipping me with everybody!?" Goku demanded to know.

"I am not-how do you know that term?" the ouji responded, his anger vanishing momentarily as he was thrown for a loop.

Goku pouted back at him, "Even with a costume, Brolli would be able to tell it was me; plus he hates me!"

"His ears are just super-sensitive and your occasional voice-squeaks irritate that hearing-sensitivity."

"I do not have voice-squeaks!" Goku exclaimed.

"Also, it's my story and I think he makes the most formidable love-rival I could ask for. You can't say for certain that if you didn't already have my heart, Muffin, that your heart-warming personality, your cute looks and your incredible marital arts prowess wouldn't entice Brolli; coupled with the absence of yours truly of course."

"Veggie-ta you are not shipping me with Brolli." Goku folded his arms.

"I know I'm not. As I said, this is my story; obviously I get to keep you all to myself in the end." Vegeta rubbed his hands together, a sneaky grin on his face, "Oh, spoilers alert."

"Hnnn.." Goku shifted around uncomfortably.

"You don't know that, Vegeta." Bulma sighed, "Even if you think you have an ending planned, what comes out while writing in the heat of the moment may end up being something completely different."

"Yes, I supposed that is true..." Vegeta trailed off, then smirked, "Well, let's say I have a good feeling that the Great and Powerful Saiyajin no Ouji is going to come out on top, figuratively **and** literally."

"Vegeta." she shot him a warning glance.

Goku raised his hand as if he were in a class, "Untrained saiyajin tails don't really react like that if you rub 'n tease 'um, do they, Veggie-tah?"

Vegeta wiggled his fingers at him, "Wanna find out?"

"NO!" Goku hid his tail behind his back.

Bulma smacked Vegeta in the back of the head with one of the other throw pillows, "Will you leave Son-kun alone?!"

"In-story, or out here?"

"Both!"

"I promise nothing." he returned to typing, unfazed.

"Vegeta!"

* * *

"So what kind of evidence are we looking at?" Bardock sat back in one of the chairs in Vegeta's room. At the table with him was Raditz, Vegeta, and Turles. Goku was seated on Vegeta's bed. Bura sat beside him, trying to brush the now-fluffed-up parts of his tail that Brolli had messed with back to their original places.

"Well, I've got one of the vials of poison he was going to use, but dropped on his way out of the kitchen." Bura volunteered, "It's got some of Goku-chan's fingerprints on it too, but that's only because he brought it to me. Since he was in the room at the time-unbeknownst at first to Paragas, he also heard Paragas' evil scheming and saw him remove the vials from the cabinet and then talked with him as Paragas tried to cover it up."

"There's also the fact that Paragas wasn't invited to the masquerade, yet his "excuse" to oujo was that he was one of the royal chefs bringing "ingredients" for the party." Vegeta added.

"And Paragas is not a royal chef?" Bardock felt he had to double-check this.

"No." Vegeta felt immensely relieved at that fact.

"He also lacks an alibi." Turles began, "No one can account for Paragas whereabouts after he left that kitchen. At least, that we're aware of."

"So then no one saw him enter the ballroom?" Bardock asked, "Wouldn't that work in his defense as well, since he could say he hadn't been there?"

"But Tousan still got poisoned, so he could've spiked something either before it entered the ballroom's kitchen or he just wasn't noticed. Or for all we know he donned a costume of some type as well." Bura explained.

"This is going to be kind of complicated, isn't it?" Bardock grimaced; he didn't want to have to deal with something like this, "What about the girl he's accusing?"

"She did legitimately break in," Vegeta said, "but she has no reasons for wanting my father dead; outside of the overly-complex theory of how it was his tournament that brought them to the island in the first place and in doing so she indirectly lost the one she was lusting after to me." he motioned to Goku, "But that seems so misdirected. Surely if she was going to try to kill anyone, it would be I."

"Ano...I didn't say I was staying here forever." Goku spoke up, unsure.

"Yet." Vegeta gave him a thumbs-up.

"Vegeta." Bardock said warningly.

"He's just a little flustered with everything that's been going on lately. You'll come around, won't you oujo-chan?" Vegeta called over to Goku, whose face was starting to flush, _::SO. CUTE.::_ the ouji mused.

"Vegeta!"

"Huh? What? Oh." he turned back to face the others at the table.

Having completed brushing the knots out of his tail, Bura gave Goku a hug and left the bed to join the group seated in the kitchen. She pulled up an empty chair and sat down.

"You know I've never seen you crush on anyone before." Raditz said to Vegeta, "But watching you in action...yeah, you're only slightly less creepy about it than Brolli is."

"Silence you, or I'll send you to the dungeon." Vegeta glowered at him.

"You are hiding the person who very might well turn out to be my younger brother in your bedroom with him in nothing more than his underwear."

"There's a long, surprisingly platonic explanation to that, actually." Vegeta pointed out.

"Try me."

"His martial arts uniform is back in my room." Bura said, "I had him take it off before I clothes-beamed him so we could go undercover at the masquerade. Goku-chan's incredibly fun to use the clothes-beam on. If we didn't have guests that's totally what I'd be doing right now."

Goku pulled the bed covers up over himself defensively. Going undercover wasn't a bad thing, but those weird feelings the clothes-beam gave him was something he'd had enough of for a while. In fact, why didn't he go and grab his gi? If he were to put that back on at least it would provide an excuse for Bura not to zap him again later. Goku slid out from under the bed and made his way to the door. He could grab nyoi-bo too. And maybe find out where Kinto'un had been hiding since last night. Poor Kinto'un was probably so lonely in this faraway place and separated from Goku and Chi-Chi.

Raditz looked down at the small piece of paper he'd written their "for" and "against" facts on, as if to do a mock-trial of how prosecuting Paragas was really going to go down. The saiyajin court system was something that wasn't used all that much-small matters were decided between the two parties on their own, larger ones were decided by martial arts battles-but they couldn't do it that way here. If this was to be decided in physical battle and Paragas designated Brolli as his stand-in, Vegeta'd get the living stuffings kicked out of him. No, the only way they were going to win this was through legalities, as unusual as that was. Raditz hoped they'd receive a good judge.

"Just as comfy, but at least now I feel like me." Goku patted his gut as he stood there in-front of the mirror in Bura's room, back in his gi, wrist-bands, and boots. Nyoi-bo's case hung over his back with the strap diagonally across the front. He was pleased at how easy it was to slip off Vegeta and Bura's radar. Though he had a feeling the other three saiyajin noticed him leaving, Goku was thankful they chose to do nothing about it, "Now to re-group!" he left Bura's room and locked the door behind him, "Kinto'un!" Goku called out, "Kinto'uuuuun!"

The puttering sound the yellow cloud made could be heard from the distance. His eyes lit up when he saw it flying down the hallway.

"Haha!" Goku clasped his hands together, then hopped up into the air as Kinto'un came towards him and he landed on-top of the cloud as it passed beneath him.

"MmpH! Mphmmmph mph!" Kinto'un cheered.

"Mmmm~ I missed you too." Goku lay there, nuzzling his cloud, "Oh!" he sat upright, "Kinto'un, Chi-Chi is next. Do you know where they took her?"

"Mhh!"

"OK." he smirked, "Then let's go!"

* * *

"Oh Goku-sa! You escaped after all! How lucky." Chi-Chi stared back at him and Kinto'un through the bars, "You're such a sight for sore eyes."

"I think those other three guys saw me, but they let me go without alerting Veggie-ta or Bura about it."

"You mean the Cheshire Cat and the two who said they might be your brother and father?"

"Cat?" Goku tilted his head.

"The way that third one acts, he reminds me of a kitty." she admitted, a little embarrassed, "I don't know anyone's actual names so I'm kind of making up ones as I go along."

"That's OK. I do stuff like that too." Goku smiled, "Ah, I'm not sure if I'm re-lated to those other two guys, but I guess they're a little like me."

"I don't suppose you can let me out?"

"Sure I can!"

"Ah, Goku-sa I know that. I mean I'm not sure if legally you're allowed to."

"Ohhh. That I dunno." he shook his head, confused.

"I don't want to mess with my chances of getting out of here and avoiding something even more unpleasant." Chi-Chi sighed.

"Chi-Chi, I forgot to tell Veggie-ta and them before cuz I was still all confused, but I did find out something new after all, so that plan wasn't a complete failure."

"What are you talking about?"

"Paragas may wanna be king, but his son doesn't wanna be prince. He told me kinda indirectly that he wouldn't want that type uh job at all. He thinks it'd be boring and annoying and get in the way."

Chi-Chi sweatdropped, "While Gyu Kingdom isn't nearly as big as this place, I can safely say that being royalty is a lot of work and contains a lot of responsibilities that take up a pretty big portion of my time. I can't imagine the workload involved with a kingdom this size; it must be huge." she paled at the thought of it.

"Chi-Chi, I still wanna go home with you." Goku admitted, holding the bars and only looking a little less dazed than earlier.

"You have no idea how much that means to me." she stared back at him, longing.

"It isn't like everyone hasn't been really nice to me since I got here, but I've been unsure of myself ever since the party and I just kinda wanna go home. If I stay too long, I'm scared one of 'um'll convince me to stay with 'um, cuz I'm not used to feeling so special and all of 'um are making me feel really special."

"They're trying to spoil you."

"I think they are! How do you go back to not feeling like that? It feels confusing but it also feels really really nice. I've never been treated this way before." Goku shook his head, frightened, "If one of them convinced me, I think I'd get used to all those nice feelings and nice things really easy."

"Well, I don't think any of them succeeded if you're here now in your gi with nyoi-bo and Kinto'un." Chi-Chi smiled, relieved, "I think you won, Goku-san."

"I hope so."

* * *

"Ohh, my dear Bejito. Why are you such an idiot!" Ruby slapped the sleeping king across the face with tears in her eyes.

Bardock sweatdropped as he looked on. The queen kept alternating back and forth between heartbroken-near-widow and enraged-irritation-at-Bejito's-lack-of-common-sense.

"But yeah, it probably was Paragas." she said to Bardock, sitting up on the small barstool next to Bejito's bedside, "They really volunteered you to be the defense, huh?" Ruby chuckled, amused.

"It's that funny?" he muttered.

"No no, it suits you. You're such a no-nonsense guy, but you have a capacity to care about those around you, even if you do so stubbornly." the queen explained, "Do you know who the judge is yet? I know we don't have many of them, but..."

"Turles thinks we might not know until the trial. It's set for two days from now." Bardock sighed.

"Then I guess our martial arts champion will have to wait a little longer to get his final round and the chance to win all that money? I know Bejito was looking forward to seeing his son battle that guy."

"Yeah, about him. Turles also thinks "that guy" is Kakarrotto." Bardock folded his arms.

"Oh! He thinks so too? The battle style is completely different, but the way he moved in combat, and his body build and hair all reminded me of you."

Bardock paled, "A-am I really the last one to know everything?"

"Looks that way." she smiled, "If you really want to make sure, ask him to do a blood test."

"I would, but I'm not sure where he is now."

"Really?"

"He snuck out of Vegeta's room and I let him go because of how uncomfortable Vegeta was making him feel." Bardock abridged the situation, not wanting to make things awkward.

"What about you, Bardock?"

"Nah, Vegeta doesn't make me feel uncomfortable. He irritates me sometimes, but-"

"-I mean our martial arts champion. Do you think he's your son?"

Bardock was silent, "I didn't get much of a chance to talk to him, but I did get to see some of his matches in the ring the other day." he paused, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's my son." he stood up, "Which is all the more reason why Vegeta and Bura monopolizing him is really starting to tick me off." Bardock begrudgingly admitted, "If he's really my kid, maybe I wanna know what happened to him? Maybe I wanna know what his life's been like? Maybe I wanna know who took care of him and if he's been taking care of himself? Maybe I wanna tell his mother that we've found him, mystery solved, we have both our sons again for the first time in 17 years?"

Ruby smiled, "You're ending everything with a question mark."

"I'm really not good at emotional-type stuff, OK?" Bardock exclaimed, blustered.

"And that's fine. I'm not especially adept at it either, ne Bejito?" she turned to the sleeping king and gave his hand a light squeeze which then turned to an irritated hand-strangle-hold before letting go, "You big fool." Ruby frowned at Bejito, "Bardock, there's some snacks in the mini-fridge if you want anything." she motioned to a fridge the size humans would deem normal, default-fridge proportions.

"Sure, why not. I could use something to munch on after dealing with the four of them."

* * *

"No...it needs to be a little darker than that." Brolli spoke to himself as he stood opposite a suit of casual armor that he'd hung on the side of his bedroom door. He held his pointer finger up and shot a clothes-beam at it, changing the armor from grey to black, "Much better. I'm so relieved I wasn't just going crazy from Vejita's constant rejections-that the mystery-princess I met at the masquerade really **does** exist. The next time we meet, princess..." he trailed off, picturing his impossibly-sweet, impossibly-adorable, mystery-lady, "I should really find out what her name is, I never did ask her." he felt embarrassed and foolish at that.

A knock came at the front door. Recognizing Paragas' ki, Brolli scowled. He answered the door, "Whatever you want, the answer is no." he bluntly asked Paragas.

"I'm happy to see you in good health too, son." Paragas said mockingly, "Especially after that masquerade; why, I heard the food had been tampered with and people had fallen ill. Why, the king himself is in a coma after eating and drinking some of the spiked meals."

Brolli's shoulders slackened a bit, "You...?" he was blindsided, "Yeah, you **would**." he reached to close the door.

"Ah! But I didn't." Paragas grabbed the side of the door, "I didn't, Brolli. However, with the king incapacitated, the throne is ripe for a siege."

"Fine, try to "siege" it. Have fun getting your ass kicked by Vejita."

"No no no. I'm not the one who'll challenge Vegeta, it'll be you."

Brolli was horrified, "Like hell!"

Paragas stood his ground, "What are you saying, Brolli? I thought you really liked the guy?"

"I do, but...I met my true love at the masquerade last night; a sweet beautiful girl with a powerful ki signature and a sense of fashion that matches her inner-sweetness to perfection! The next time I meet my mystery-princess, I'm going to ask for her answer. Also for her name."

"You don't know her name?" Paragas flatly stated.

"Names aren't important! It's the feelings that mean something! The way she lit up after I revealed how much stronger I am than Vejita; something that Vejita has only shunned me for, something he has been afraid of is the same thing my princess reveled in. That's why I can't fight Vejita for the throne. I no longer need him. Besides, you would make a rotten king anyway." he backed up and shut the door in Paragas' face.

"Well, well FINE you big ignoramus! You won't be able to ask your new love's name if I find and kill her first!"

The door swung open, "You wouldn't dare." Brolli was already in his mid-way form in-between base and lssj.

"I WOULD." Paragas challenged, "It's not as though it'd be that hard to find her! She was dressed like a damn children's fairytale character at that masquerade."

"She looked exquisite." Brolli growled at him.

"Anyone who walks around dressed like that is going to be easy to locate, though of course you being yourself I'm not at all surprised you haven't been able to find her." he taunted, "Your lady is such a messy eater, it'd be easy to drop a little something into her meals without her noticing. Maybe with her out of the way you'll be able to think clearly again."

"You touch her and I will end you."

"I'll use my kingly powers to have you banished to the dungeon for eternity before that happens."

"You'll never become king!"

Paragas relaxed and smirked back at the increasingly angry Brolli, "We'll see about that."

* * *

4:34 PM 9/19/2012

**~*End of Part 4*~**


	5. Ace Attorney Bardock and the Bonus Round

3:38 PM 9/21/2012

**Disclaimer: Dragon Ball Z is a property of Akira Toriyama, Toei Animation, and Shueisha**

**Summary: When a lack of updates and an overly playful Goku drive Vegeta into temporary hiding within the bowels of Capsule Corp, he decides to take out his frustration on an old typewriter and come up with his own movie plotline. With a morbidly curious Bulma to referee, what kind of dastardly adventure will the prince come up with?**

**Part 5: "Ace Attorney Bardock and the Bonus Round"**

* * *

Brolli did not sleep well that night. Nightmares of his mystery-princess dead on the ballroom floor, sprawled belly-up, her rich cream gown splaying out around her with her body lying at an unnatural angle. A half-eaten, seemingly innocent-looking pastry sitting loosely in her outstretched hand. Her bangs were askew, but her long, waist-length midnight-blue curls had fallen overtop of her face like a death-veil.

_"I told you I'd get there first." Paragas mocked him. Brolli spun around, his ki steadily rising. Paragas held a strangely-familiar-looking bottle of poison, "She wasn't good enough for you anyway. I bet she wasn't even a princess at all."_

"!" Brolli awoke with a start. He turned to his alarm-clock and groaned. It was 4:20 in the morning; this was the third time he'd woken up. That bottle of poison; how it stirred his rage even now, when it had clearly been revealed to be nothing more than a horrible dream.

As his head was just about to hit the pillow, a sudden flash of recognition that Brolli hadn't been capable of in the dream smacked him upside the head. Within moments he was out of bed and rushing into the kitchen. Surely he was just imagining things; there was no way he could get this lucky. No way it hadn't registered any earlier. He dug through the garbage can in the kitchen, making his way through empty cartons and moldy bread; wildly throwing the waste to the ground beside him until halfway down he saw it.

Not just the now-empty bottle he'd dreamt of, but a few smaller boxes of equally toxic stuff as well. And all three had the official royal pantry seal on them, a sticker used by the king in order to catch anyone who'd stolen his groceries.

Brolli sat back, trying to take this in. Paragas telling him he was the one behind the attempted murder wasn't something that would hold up in court-especially as Brolli had no witnesses or recordings-but the attempted murder-weapons themselves, possibly covered with Paragas' fingerprints, sure were. Brolli put on a pair of nearby rubber gloves and fished the bottle and two boxers out with pasta-tongs before dropping them into a hermetically-sealed box and shut the lid. This was evidence. Hard evidence. He would have that old beast put away for threatening his future happiness; somewhere far away for the rest of his life so Paragas couldn't touch them no matter how hard he tried.

It would be awkward speaking with Vejita now, with how everything had turned out. He hoped the prince wouldn't be too broken up now that Brolli had found someone new. Ah well, he'd have to let the defense know sooner or later about his discovery. He wasn't about to let Paragas get away with this.

* * *

"This is ridiculous! Who wears a suit to a court case!?" Bardock snapped at the plain black suit and tie he wore.

"Um, attorneys do. And since you're the acting as an attorney-even if it's an unofficial one-you've got to wear a suit." Bura folded her arms.

"Well it sucks." he grumbled.

"That looks way more uncomfortable than anything I've had to wear since I got here." Goku munched on a muffin as he watched the scene unfold.

Raditz sweatdropped at his brother, recalling Goku's costume from the masquerade, "A suit is more painful to wear than that? How do you rank things?!"

Goku only stared back, shrugged, and downed the remainder of his baked-good.

"I didn't even know you owned a suit." Vegeta pointed out, a little surprised.

"Yeah, well, it's not like I was using it." Bardock brushed some dust off the sleeves.

"Or took care of it." Bura added, raising an eyebrow.

Goku grabbed another pie and dug in, his tail wagging behind him as he did so. He just hadn't felt comfortable eating from the royal kitchen after Paragas had stolen poison from it, and so Goku found himself wandering back in to the prince's lotus-eater for his meals. And very satisfying meals too; he patted his belly, content. Even after expressing his apprehensions about finding it frighteningly difficult to tear himself away from such comforting surroundings, Goku figured they'd only be here two more days, tops. The first in court to clear Chi-Chi's name and the second for him to battle Vegeta for the prize money.

"Goku-chan!" Bura gave him a hug from behind, hopping up onto the couch with him, "We got to get you a room."

"A room for what?" Goku smiled over his shoulder at her.

"Nonsense, I've got plenty of room for him right here." Vegeta motioned to their surroundings.

"That's not much privacy you know." Bura stated.

"Well I'm pretty sure that won't be necessary since he's going home with his family." Bardock adjusted his tie while sending a warning glare Vegeta's way.

"Oh I'm sorry, do you have actual proof Oujo's related to you? Because if you don't I'm afraid you're in no position to make such an unfounded claim." Vegeta smirked back.

"Maybe I should get going; I wanted to bring some snacks to Chi-Chi too." Goku shifted around uneasily.

"No Goku-chan don't leave!" Bura exclaimed, holding on tighter, "I'll tell you what, I promise I won't clothes-beam directly onto you til you get your tail trained properly; I'll use clothes-beam on a clothes-hanger and you can put 'um on like regular non-magical clothes."

"That does sound better..."

Vegeta was horrified, "But I adore the clothes-beam henshins!"

"Oniichan." Bura said flatly, "It can be put on hold til Goku-chan trains his tail to withstand sensitivities."

"Yeah Veggie-tah. You don't wanna hurt me, right?" Goku added.

The ouji twitched lightly, "No, no I don't. And it's not like you're completely rejecting it; that would break my heart. And anyway..." he trailed off, shifting moods, "I guess my fingers could use some exercise, if we're really going to be doing it the old-fashioned way for a little while." a sneaky smile slid up his face, "No worries, Oujo-chan, "Veggie-ta'll" be real gentle with you."

"Weh?" the other saiyajin blinked in confusion at that, "Um, I'll be back. I'm gonna go give Chi-Chi some of the snacks." picking up a bundle of food, Goku headed for the door only to have it open before he got there, "Oh!"

"Hey, sorry for being so late, I hope nothing happened while I was gone." Turles waved to the group, "I ran into these two on my way here and they have some great news."

"Good~"

"~morning!"

Vejitto and Gogeta stood behind Turles, the two of them with grins on their faces.

"What's up with your moods?" Bardock asked skeptically.

"He's out!" Gogeta cheered.

"And soon he'll be up!" Vejitto gave a thumbs-up, "The king! He's out of his coma."

Vegeta and Bura's faces lit up, "Really?!"

"He's still asleep, but it's normal sleep now." Gogeta replied.

"Yes!" Vegeta made a pair of fists, "Things are looking up now! Once Tousan awakens and gives irrefutable proof that it was Paragas who spiked his drink, it won't even matter that we don't have any physical hard evidence to go on!"

The fusions stared at him with surprise, "You don't have-"

"-any hard evidence?"

The prince faltered, "Ah-well, not really, but we've got a solid theory, and anyway it couldn't have been that girl who tried to come back for Goku. She doesn't have anything against my father."

"Yeah! Chi-Chi's not a bad guy!" Goku shook his head, "And that's why I gotta go bring her some snacks." he held up a table-cloth-wrapped bundle of food, already standing in the hallway with no one having seen him leave the room.

"Hurry back, Goku-chan!" Bura called after him.

"OK!"

* * *

"Hey, you're her, right? The wrong-place, wrong-time girl."

Chi-Chi blinked, just waking up, Kinto'un by her side and acting as her pillow. The cloud had squeezed between the bars to keep her company while Goku was gone. If it weren't for the determination in his voice at wanting everything to go back to the way it was, she wasn't sure she would've felt safe letting him go back to Vegeta's room, "What?" she turned to the unfamiliar male voice to see the prince's tall, handsome muscular bodyguard. He had to be as tall as Piccolo, and she still thought he fit the image of an ouji better than the Saiyajin Kingdom's actual prince, "Oh Mister Bishi!" Chi-Chi stood up, "Yeah, that'd be me."

Brolli sweatdropped, thrown a bit, "Mister Bishi?"

"No one's telling me their names around here, so I'm left having to come up with my own." she folded her arms, "Well, actually that may not be true for everyone, I know some of the names, but not nearly as many as I should considering the spot I'm in."

"I'm Brolli, by the way." he awkwardly introduced himself.

"Chi-Chi; Gyu Kingdom princess." she smiled back.

Brolli reached over his shoulder and pulled off a small backpack, "I came here to let you know that I've found the key to taking down that old man in court today, and I wanted to put a face to the victim he chose to throw in front of the bus."

Chi-Chi's gaze trailed to the backpack, "No way...you've got-"

"-hard evidence? Yeah."

"Oh thank you!" she clasped her hands together, "The one thing we were missing!"

"It's no recorded confession, or security video, but it's just as good."

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you, not here." he put the backpack back on, having to adjust his shirt as he did so, "I don't feel safe about it out in the open. You'll see it in court."

"Fair enough. I realize I shouldn't even be questioning it, but why are you helping me?"

"Because my old man doesn't deserve to be king, because I don't want to be prince, and because he threatened the life of the girl I love. He's the one who needs to be behind bars, but not these, somewhere a lot farther away, as far as we could send him while ensuring he never returns." Brolli spoke with conviction, "I just wish I weren't so tired." he deflated a bit, "And I wish I knew where she was, and that she's alright. Her ki is incredibly powerful, but as we can both plainly see, physical strength alone can't stand up to poisons."

"Well, I hope you find her, and that she's safe." Chi-Chi sympathized, "I'm in a similar predicament. Your prince wants to take Goku-san away from me, but Goku-sa knows better than to trust him; he doesn't want to stay here."

"Goku?"

"The guy who won the martial arts tournament; he's my childhood friend. My best friend. I love him." she spoke naturally and honest, smiling wistfully as she said it.

Brolli tried to recall the sole saiyajin participant in the tournament, the one who had at the time slightly irritated him because he had captured Vejita's attention; yet the memory was blurred and faded now that who Vejita fancied no longer mattered to him, "I kind of remember seeing him fight. Orange gi?"

She nodded, smiling warmly, "Orange gi."

The door down the hallway burst open and the sounds of running footsteps grew closer until they suddenly grinded to a halt.

"Goku-san?" Chi-Chi turned to see him, surprised that he had stopped without warning. She saw frightened guilt all over his face, and further that he was staring up at Brolli with that nervous broke-your-cookie-jar expression, "Goku-sa are you ok?"

Goku swallowed, _::Why's he here? What if he figures out that Veggie-ta and Bura and I tricked him? I can't say anything; my voice'll gimmie away.::_ a group of muddled thoughts ran through his head as he somehow managed to turn back to Chi-Chi and hand her the wrapped up snacks through the spaces in-between the bars.

"Oh! And they're still warm! Thank you, Goku-sa."

He gave a brisk nod, still nervous.

"Um, is he frightening you?" she asked Goku while motioning to Brolli.

"I am the strongest one in the kingdom; sometimes it's intimidating." he lamented, embarrassed, "Sorry if my ki's scaring you; I'm trying to keep it down, but it's harder when I haven't gotten much sleep." Brolli explained to Goku.

_::UWAHHH! He seems like a nice person too! I did such a terrible thing!:: _Goku frowned, hurt. The fur on his tail was still standing on end and his tail itself continued to thrash behind him out of frightened muscle-memory.

"Brolli's found hard evidence to clear my name! We can use it to prove Paragas is the would-be murderer!" Chi-Chi told him.

Goku's eyes lit up, "Really?" he exclaimed with excitement only to realize too late that he'd spoken outloud. He promptly covered his mouth with his hands, then looked up at Brolli.

If Brolli had recognized Goku's voice, he hadn't made them aware of it, "They'll be arriving to take you to the court room within the next couple hours. I'll meet you there." he then excused himself and left down the corridor, closing the door behind him.

Goku let out a huge sigh of relief once Brolli was gone, "So close..."

"What was that all about?" Chi-Chi said in-between bites of cookies, "You never get scared of strong guys. Excited about getting to fight 'um, yeah, but not scared."

"I'm not scared uh him!" Goku pouted stubbornly. His tail swished down near the floor, "It's just...Veggie-ta and Bura and I tricked him the other day to get information out of him cuz we didn't know if he was in cahoots with the bad guy, but now that we know he's not I feel awful! I didn't want him to recognize my voice and get all upset cuz it'd mess with Chi-Chi's chances of proving she didn't do it!" his nerves sent his words all over the place.

"Well, why don't you just apologize to him?"

"I can't!"

Chi-Chi raised an eyebrow, "And this is because...?"

"It'll just make things worse." Goku started fiddling with his gi top.

"I'm pretty sure the only way things could get worse for that guy is if turns out his dad really did make good on his threat to kill the girlfriend. He's been looking for her for days, and you know what they say about disappearances and the first 48 hours."

"He's not gonna find her." Goku sat down next to the bars, feeling down.

"That's weirdly pessimistic of you." Chi-Chi murmured. A thought struck her, "Oh no; she's already dead and you know it, don't you? If she is you need to go tell him, Goku-san."

"She's not dead!" Goku blurted out, "She's not even real! All she started out as was a cover to sneak into the masquerade and warn the king about Paragas and I can't help it if Brolli noticed her and liked her and danced with her but it didn't matter cuz I wasn't gonna see him again after the masquerade but later Veggie-ta decided she was the only one who could get the information out of him about what was going on with Paragas so we had to do another costume and he was really really nice to me and I don't think he even realized how sensitive my tail is cuz all the saiyajin who live here train their tails from when they're little and I never knew that so it gave me so many weird feelings inside and, and, he's never gonna find her because she's me!"

Chi-Chi sat there staring at him with his watery eyes and shaking body, dumbfounded, "You gotta be kidding me."

"Oh Chi-Chi she's me! She's me in disguise wearing really fancy costumes 'n pretty wigs." the guilt hung heavy over Goku's shoulders.

"Dammit Goku-san, why does everyone around here want you?! It's like the opposite of how it is at home." she exclaimed.

Goku shrugged, still feeling bad.

"Well I'm glad I didn't see you with the wig on, whatever that looked like." she sighed, tired, "I don't think you need to worry about your voice; there's so many people around here with voices that sound similar to yours-Cheshire Cat and my would-be attorney for examples."

Kinto'un squeezed out from between the bars and hovered over towards Goku, who reached out and glomped onto the cloud for comfort, "Oh Kinto'un..." he buried his face in it, "I feel so awful."

Chi-Chi patted him on the back from the other side of the cell, "Listen Goku-san, there's a couple ways we can handle this, but I need to get out of here first before we try either of them. Are you listening?"

He peered over at her and nodded, still holding Kinto'un.

"You can tell him the truth and apologize for what you've done; explain the whole thing including Vegeta's part in it-"

"-Bura helped too."

"-and Bura's part in it, and just take what comes of it. He'll probably be mad at you, and he might not forgive you, but that's the chance you take; at least the burden'll be off your mind." Chi-Chi said, "The second option is the one where we essentially do nothing. We pretend we don't know where she is when asked if we've seen her. We leave the situation unresolved and no one pays a penalty. His heartbreak over not knowing what happened to her will probably haunt and hurt him for a while, but eventually he'll move on and find someone else to love."

"He loves her?"

"That's what he told me; how could you let Vegeta manipulate you into manipulating someone else like that!? Brolli didn't do anything to you worth that! Did he?"

Goku shook his head.

Chi-Chi sighed.

"She doesn't even have a name, Chi-Chi. She doesn't even have a name for him to hold onto." Goku squirmed.

"Seriously?"

"Super-seriously."

"Aloha oe!" a familiar voice broke through the tragic setting with a cheerful tone.

Goku and Chi-Chi looked over to see Vejitto and Gogeta standing there, this time dressed as policemen.

"We're bailiffs now!" Gogeta tugged on his hat.

"With real badges 'n everything." Vejito pointed his own shiny gold badge out.

"And we're here to escort you court." Gogeta whipped out a keychain loaded with keys. He stuck one of them into the keyhole to Chi-Chi's cell and swung the door open wide, freeing her from the tiny room, "Ta-da~!"

"Oh thank you!" she said, relieved yet weary. Goku's further complications had tired her out, "So?" Chi-Chi started out, trying to lighten the mood, "Did you find out who the judge is?"

* * *

"The Saiyajin Legal Court welcomes the..." Toma paused mid-announcement, unable to fully convince himself of what was written at the end of the sentence, "..Honorable Judge Nappa."

"Hi." Nappa waved from the judge's chair, his presence there confounding pretty much everyone in the court who knew him.

"You must be joking." Vegeta muttered in disbelief.

"Hey Vegeta! Funny seeing you here. What're ya in for?"

"A hell of a Wednesday, apparently." a small headache began to pulse behind his eyes, "Since when did you become a judge, Nappa?"

"Oh I've been a judge for a while, Vegeta. I've got a legal document with my name on it and everything. It's just never come up in conversation before. I'm also a certified air guitarist with a pokémon masters degree."

"I'm going to sit down now." the prince bluntly stated before doing so.

"Starting to see why we don't settle things in court all that often." Bardock sweatdropped.

"Mwahaha!" Paragas laughed from his side of the room, dressed in a green suit, "You better prepare for trouble, Bardock, because when I'm through with you you'll be begging me to throw you in jail just to escape the kingdom-wide derision you'll receive after I beat you down."

"Uh-huh." Bardock dryly acknowledged him.

"Your honor!" Paragas turned to Judge Nappa, "I'd like to call to the stand my first witness; her Excellency, Queen Rutabega."

Ruby gave Paragas a suspicious glance as she took the witness box.

"So? Promise you'll tell the truth? And that you won't lie?" Judge Nappa asked.

"Yes." she responded, still keeping her eyes on Paragas and the court.

"Your highness," Paragas began, "If you may, please describe the events of the evening leading up to your husband's attempted murder."

"That's a rather blunt way to put it."

"It's a rather harsh crime."

"Hm..." she frowned, "Once everyone had been dismissed from the tournament grounds, Bejito escorted the winner back to the kitchen while I went to go check on how the setup for the masquerade was going. After dropping him off, Bejito and I met back at our chambers where we got ready for the party and then returned to the room where it was being held. We left the party early, around 10pm, to enjoy some quiet time to ourselves. We'd brought some empty champagne glasses from the ballroom and Bejito decided to go to the royal kitchen to retrieve some drinks for us there. Obviously he never made it back."

"What do you think Bardock-san?" Chi-Chi asked, unsure.

"We don't know what time exactly it was that you were arrested, and Paragas could've messed with the official documents for that, so zeroing in on the time is off limits." he thought outloud to himself, "Ah, your highness! Isn't it true that the kitchen you're referring to is the same one the King had let the tournament winner eat in?"

"Yes."

"Was it determined that the poison originated from the wine bottle from the royal kitchen, or the glass from the ballroom?"

"The poison was a liquid-type dropped in the wine bottle; if it had been in the glass it would've been noticeable from the start and no one would've used it."

"So it's most likely to say the person who poisoned it had access to the royal kitchen."

"That's true."

"But you need a key to enter, right? And only the king himself has that key."

"Also true. You can lock the door without the key, but you need that key in order to unlock it." she explained, "That door is kept locked regularly with the exception of when the royal family makes use of it. Do you have any more questions?"

"No, but you have been very helpful. Thanks."

"You're welcome." the queen smiled back.

* * *

"Man I am no good at this at all." Bardock grumbled as he flipped through his notes, "Why can't we just beat him up? What's wrong with that?"

"So, Ms. Chi-Chi," Paragas had her on the witness stand, "You illegally broke into this castle on a deadly errand; to kill our king out of vengeance for what happened to your village and for the temporary loss of your own loved one. As you're not physically strong enough to kill Bejito, you chose to poison him instead!"

"That's all lies!"

"Really? Then who let you into the building?"

She glared back at him, stuck, "Er, well, maybe I did break in, but I didn't do any of that other stuff! I certainly didn't try to kill anybody! Besides, after seeing the battles earlier that day, if I was planning to off someone-which I wasn't-I would never have used poison!"

"Oho? And why is that?"

"Because of that poison-man who fought Goku-sa; as far as I knew at the time, poison couldn't affect saiyajin." she demanded, "He threw all sorts of horrible-smelling stuff at Goku-san and nothing happened. As soon as the tournament was over I was shuffled back home; I didn't have any time to learn anything otherwise. I didn't even know saiyajin existed before those soldiers were sent to my village; I don't have any resource material on saiyajin!"

Bardock spoke up, "There are only a select few poisons powerful enough to affect saiyajin. Even so, there's no way Chi-Chi could know which ones, especially if she can't read the language. She wouldn't have had any time to learn it, not in a single day! It had to be someone who can not only read saiyago, but also knows which poisons are harmful to us." he explained, "Someone from within the castle walls. Someone who was seen sneaking inside the kitchen hours before the King arrived. And that someone is **you**, Paragas!" he stood up and pointed at him.

"!" Paragas froze in place, "P-preposterous!"

Bardock smirked, "I call Son Goku to the stand."

* * *

"Ah-ano..." Goku shifted around uncomfortably in the witness seat. Chi-Chi watched him from the audience, nervous for him.

"Don't worry, I'm only going to ask you about stuff relevant to the case." Bardock sighed, "We're not gonna get into clothing details, alright?"

Goku gave a little nod.

"Son Goku, the King left you in the royal kitchen to make yourself dinner; he took the keys with him, right?"

"Uhn. I was told to lock up after I left, and he showed me where the lock was, so I figured I should just eat til I was full since I wouldn't be able to get back in after I left."

"Aside from King Bejito, did anyone else enter that room?"

"He did!" Goku motioned to Paragas, "He lied 'n said he was a chef, but he's not a chef at all, is he?"

"Ah-clearly the young man's mistaking me for someone else." Paragas gave a slight nervous flinch, "He's brand new here, he can't be expected to remember everyone he sees."

"He grabbed some stuff and said it was ingredients for the party, and when I asked him if he was royalty too cuz of his cape he gave an evil laugh and said he would be soon enough, and when he left he dropped one of his bottles and I went to go see what it was and it was poison!"

"HAH! And how could you know that?" Paragas rebuffed him, "Like the young lady here, you can't read saiyago either."

"No, I can't." Goku watched him carefully, "But I know enough that when you see a skull 'n crossbones on somethin', it's probably poison. Or pirate vitamins. But most likely poison!"

Paragas' face lit up, "An image! So then we're back to square 4, Chi-Chi could've known what it was after all."

"Chi-Chi was never in that room! Not til long after the king drank that drink a his!" Goku exclaimed, "As soon as I realized what it was, I left the room and ran to get help. You were the only one who could've done it, and I bet those other bottles that you didn't drop were poison too. In fact, I also bet that if you hadn't been all clumsy 'n dropped the third one, your death-drink would've killed Veggie-ta and Bura's dad instead of just dropped him into a coma!"

"In fact, I have that very bottle right here!" Bura whipped out the baggy containing the bottle, "And it's got **your** fingerprints all over it, Paragas! Along with the royal kitchen sticker on it."

"Well that's simply immaterial to the trial then." he said coolly, "If that bottle wasn't used to poison anybody, then its presentation here is useless."

"It proves you took poison from the royal kitchen!"

"To set bug traps for all you know. Besides, that meager little container on its own isn't enough to kill anybody." Paragas replied.

Bura stumbled, "Yeah, well..."

"So I guess you really don't have much of a leg to stand on after all."

"OBJECTION!"

All eyes turned to Bardock, who couldn't help but feel awkward at the attention. He shook it off and pressed on, "When the wine bottle Bejito was drinking from was recovered, the two types of poison identified as being present within the bottle were very specific poisons. Namely, these two poisons were two of three missing items exclusive to the royal kitchen as evidenced by this inventory sheet from the previous day." Bardock motioned to Gogeta, who whipped out a long sheet of paper, "The only three people who entered the room during that day were you, Son Goku, and King Bejito. However, the only person to take items with him as he left was you."

"SO? It doesn't matter! Where's your hard evidence? Your irrefutable proof!? You can make accusations all you like, BarDOCK, but that's all they are. Face it; without the supposed murder weapons all you have are an unused bottle and the testimony of the accused's boyfriend." his snarl turned into a malicious grin, "For all we know, maybe it was Bejito. Maybe he was trying to off himself."

"You ASS!" the queen snapped at Paragas and followed it up by hollering curse words in her native language at him, "Bejito would never do that!"

"He puts together this huge tournament the likes of which we've never seen for his son, perhaps it was a farewell present, hm?"

"YOU-"

The doors suddenly swung open wide, "Sorry I'm late!" Brolli announced, "But I think I have something to make up for it." he smirked as two lab scientists appeared to either side of him, one of them carrying a report.

In Brolli's arms was the backpack Chi-Chi had seen back behind bars. His gloved hands unzipped the bag to reveal a box, whose lid he lifted open to reveal a pair of empty poison bottles, "You're a really sloppy would-be killer, Tousan; throwing the murder weapons away in the garbage can at home?" he held one up to show the royal kitchen sticker on it, "But I had to be 100 percent sure, so I brought it to the police lab. Sure enough, it checked out; these bottles not only match the missing poisons and the poison found in the king's wine bottle, but they've got your finger-prints all over them."

"I-IMPOSSIBLE!" Paragas cracked.

Judge Nappa smacked his gavel against the podium, "I declare this young lady here-"

"-Chi-Chi." she offered hopefully.

"-Chi-Chi, NOT GUILTY. Bailiffs! Arrest that man!" Nappa pointed his gavel at Paragas, who backed up as Vejitto and Gogeta converged on him.

"Y-you, you'll never take me alive!" Paragas screamed, running for the door.

"Judge's gavel, I choose you! Gavel! Use clobber-attack!"

Brolli braced himself to take Paragas on as he closed in on the other end of the room only to have something hard smack him in the back of the head and knock him unconscious mid-run. It was the gavel, which spun for a moment beside Paragas before falling onto its' side. The court turned back to face the judge, stunned. Nappa was standing up and posed in a weird pitching motion.

"Toldja I have a pokémon masters', Vegeta." Nappa grinned, "Bullseye."

* * *

"You don't know how grateful I am to you for all this!" Chi-Chi exclaimed as she sat in the lobby. Bardock still felt awkward at receiving praise and Brolli still looked immensely tired, but all Chi-Chi could feel right now was relief. Raditz, Vegeta, and Bura stood off to the side while Goku sat next to Chi-Chi with Kinto'un on his lap.

"You're...welcome..." Bardock avoided eye-contact.

She smiled back at him. He was a little cold, but underneath he was still a nice guy. Chi-Chi turned to Brolli, "And you, it must've taken an awful lot of guts to turn in a family member like that, even one you weren't all that close to."

"Yeah, well, he's finally getting what's coming to him." Brolli sighed, his tiredness showing though.

"Are you gonna be alright?"

"As soon as I find where my mystery-princess got to, yeah, things will start to look up again." Brolli smiled at the thought and Chi-Chi felt a bit of heartache at what she now knew to be an impossible-quest.

Goku sunk down deeper into Kinto'un with regret. Part of him was screaming inside to tell the truth while another part-terrified at what would happen if he did-battled wit it.

"Ah, you don't mean that girl from the masquerade..." Vegeta felt a sliver of dread.

"She isn't just "that girl", she's a lady!" Brolli snapped back at him, then mused, "My dear mystery-princess; the way we waltzed together, she moved with such gentle loving grace, her delicate dark-blue curls brushing up against those lightly-blushing cheeks, it was as though she were out of a dream!"

Chi-Chi mouthed 'You **waltzed** with him?!' to Goku, who nervously mouthed back 'Maybe.' Chi-Chi put her palms over her face and shook her head for a moment.

"You know, it's possible someone else might already have her heart." the ouji spoke up.

"Well, that must be no more than that someone else's opinion, if she hasn't professed love to you. Has she?"

"I-not in such terms..."

"Do you even know her name?"

"Do you!?"

Brolli was struck silent. He took a deep breath, "I won't let you have her, Vejita. She's too sweet and free-spirited to be shackled to a title. You better not be keeping her locked away somewhere. If I find out that's why I can't locate her, because you're hiding her from me..."

"*AHEM!*" Raditz loudly cleared his throat. He had to stop this. Vegeta and Brolli were essentially fighting over who gets to have a romantic relationship with the person Raditz was pretty sure was Kakarrotto. His younger brother was being fought over by two of Raditz' childhood friends, and that was all kinds of uncomfortable to Raditz, "Hey guys, what about that final round of the tournament? I think Goku'd like his chance to fight for that prize money so he and Chi-Chi can head on home, huh?"

"Thank you!" Chi-Chi clasped her hands together.

"Oh, oh yeah, that." Vegeta recalled, "Well, we've had enough for one day, I suppose it'll be taken care of first thing tomorrow; my father should be awake by then, and he was especially looking forward to seeing me battle the tournament's champion, so tomorrow morning will do nicely."

_::You're going to keep us here another day?!::_ Chi-Chi mentally balked.

"You should be able to return to your guest room without any trouble, but if you would like for safety purposes, I could have others accompany you there." Vegeta explained, "Son Goku, however, I'd like to speak with a moment in private." he took Goku's hand and pulled him up off the bench before leading Goku back down the hall towards the prince's royal chamber.

"OH-_::hell no!::_" Chi-Chi cut herself off. After all, everyone here had just finished working together to help free her from false accusations and very well warded off what could've been a war between Saiyajin Kingdom and Gyu Kingdom. No, she had to trust that Goku-san would be able to work this out; let the saiyajin prince down easy. Brolli wasn't as much of a threat at the moment; he hadn't a clue it was Goku behind those costumes, _::But supposing Goku-san's guilt does get to be too much, and he apologizes to Brolli and explains what happened, and then instead of feeling embarrassed and letting it go, Brolli decides he still wants Goku-san after all!?:: _she squirmed at the frightening possibility. Brolli had once held a torch for Vegeta, and in Chi-Chi's opinion, Goku-sa was a lot more attractive in looks and personality than Vegeta was, _::I just have to trust in Goku-san's own ability to handle this smoothly. He can do it! I know he can. Right?::_

* * *

"Mmm~" Goku lay on the big comfy bed in the royal chambers with a full belly. After such an anxiety-filled morning, he felt like he could fall asleep right here even though he'd just been fed. The now-empty plates that had been full of delicious foods from every corner of the food group sat on the kitchen table.

"Hey, Goku-chan. How are you feeling?" Bura bent down to peek over the side of the bed at him.

"Good. Really good." he smiled back, his tail lazily swishing about in the air behind him.

"What is it you want all that money for, anyway?" Vegeta climbed up onto the bed and sat beside Goku.

"Food, and fixing some buildings in the village, but mostly food." Goku replied sleepily. He felt something warm begin to rub at his back and Goku involuntarily started to purr, "There, ohhhhh, there is not e-nough food at home for me to, oh! To eat regularly all the time and sometimes people get mad at me because I eat so much, but that's not my fault cuz I'm not human after all; I really do gotta bigger stomach."

"Well, it's not so much a bigger stomach as a faster metabolism." Bura sweatdropped, "Saiyajin burn calories really quickly, so we have to eat a lot to stay healthy."

"Oh." he kind of understood her, "OHH! T-too close!" Goku's face flushed. The rubbing had gotten far enough down his back where it was steadily approaching his tail. Vegeta pulled his hands away and moved them back up.

"If everyone back home thinks you're a burden, why not stay here with us?" she asked.

Vegeta leaned towards Goku, "I can have the money sent home with your friend regardless of if you win the match tomorrow against me or not; that way they're able to repair their buildings. If you spend it on food, eventually you'll run out of money again, so why not stay here where you'll always have plenty to eat."

"Um..." Goku trailed off.

"We all really like you, Goku-chan." Bura added, "You're so adorable, inside and out."

"And I can take care of you better than anyone in that village ever could." Vegeta spoke into Goku's ear, making him flush all over again, "Stick with me, Oujo, and you'll always be full, always be comfortable, and you'll have an endless supply of strong fellow warriors to spar with."

"Um...I...I gotta think about it." Goku pulled himself up off the bed, his back still tingly from all that soft needling.

"I can live with that answer for now." Vegeta admitted, "But you don't have much time; our battle is in less than half a day."

"I know. I just...I gotta think about it." he shifted around, "There's still people back home that do care about me; I'm not sure if..if I should leave them."

"We'll take good care of you, we promise!" Bura threw in.

"I know." he looked down at his shoes, "I gotta go now." Goku turned to leave.

"You will give me an answer after the battle though, won't you?" Vegeta asked him.

Goku thought it over as he stood there in the doorway with his back facing the ouji. He looked over his shoulder at him, "Yes. I'll give Veggie-ta an answer after I fight him tomorrow."

The ouji smiled, "Excellent."

* * *

Goku found himself wandering the halls of the castle, feeling lost. Vegeta and Bura were really nice to him after-all, and he had enjoyed living this way, but could he really stay here in this kingdom for good?

"You know, despite how huge this castle is, it's only one of many places on the island."

Goku spun to see Brolli standing there, gazing out at the evening sky through one of the tall hallway windows. He shifted around, uncomfortable with Brolli there. Goku's tail subconsciously tucked down near his feet.

"There were still lots of places to explore that you haven't seen yet, and you're not going to get the chance to see them, possibly ever, if you leave tomorrow." Brolli pointed out, still looking out the window, "Of course, pretty much everything out there is dangerous."

Goku's eyes lit up, "Really?!"

"Monstrous plants and animals the likes you've never seen. Volcanoes, tornado-pockets, strange and powerful beasts that could only appear on an isolated floating island like this." he scratched the back of his head, "Why do you think the castle's got all those outer-layers fortifying it? It's because the rest of his island is full of incredibly strong monsters!"

"Eh-heh. Heh-heh-heh-heh~" Goku couldn't keep the grin off his face, "Incredibly strong, huh?" his fingers twitched, "I'm getting excited just thinking about it!" he made a pair of fists, then grabbed one of Brolli's hands and gave it a shake, "Thank you so much! I know what to do now!"

Brolli stared down at him, surprised, "You do?"

"Uhn!" Goku nodded, "I dunno why I didn't think of it earlier; I've just been all nervous about a lotta stuff I guess, but now I've got it! Oop!"

Brolli covered Goku's eyes with his free hand, confusing the other saiyajin and allowing him to pull his other hand free, "Just so you know, there's a lot of different types of power out there."

"I know! Isn't it great!" Goku pushed the hand off his face, "And if I stick around a little while, I'll get to spar against you too, right?"

"Most likely, yes."

"Heh-heh~ OK! Off I go! See you later!" he waved, turning to run off only to have his own hands grabbed this time.

"Hey, wait."

"Weh?" Goku blinked up at him.

"I understand the first, but, why'd you do it a second time?" his voice grew heavy as he asked, "It's been bothering me that I can't figure it out."

"The second...?" he trailed off as his confusion grew.

Brolli's palm glew with ki as his hands engulfed Goku's. He drew it away to reveal a familiar pair of gloves clothes-beamed over Goku's hands.

Goku stood there a moment, frozen in shock. These were indeed identical to the gloves from his second undercover costume. He bit his lip, his guilt wrenching inside him, "Veggie-ta said it was because he didn't think you'd tell him anything about Paragas cuz it was your parent vs his parent, but I don't think Veggie-ta really thought that, I think he liked what Bura clothes-beamed me into the first time so much he wanted to do it a bunch more times with a whole lotta different costumes! W-which is fine, except for my tail, cuz it's really sensitive to techniques, even stuff that you wouldn't normally think of as attacks like clothes-beam." the words flowed out of him, "I'm so sorry it turned out to be a mean terrible trick and I never meant to hurt anybody and I don't think Veggie-ta or Bura did either since they're both your friends so...I'm sorry!" he nodded deeply, then peeked up, "Can I still spar against you some time?"

"..." the taller saiyajin just stood there, quietly.

Goku felt some residual nervousness creep in as he tugged lightly on the gloves, "Ano...a..eto...how long have you known it was me?"

"Does it matter?"

"Ah!" he was struck dumb for an answer, "I guess because...you came to Chi-Chi's rescue, and mine at the very last moment, and I know you really don't like your parent, and you don't wanna be royalty, so..." Goku stumbled around for words, "No, I guess it doesn't matter. I'm sorry."

"It's alright, Goku." Brolli sighed, "Yes, that would be Vejita's design; he's really quite exceptional, as you'll find out on the battlefield tomorrow."

Some minor relief washed over him, "So you're not mad at Veggie-ta?"

"For **that**? Of course not." Brolli waved this away, "Vejita gave me an enchanting afternoon in the afterglow of the prior evening. How could I be upset over a set of such magical experiences?"

Goku's eyes lit up; this was working out fantastically! Two friends who had inadvertently pitted themselves against one another were going to reconcile their differences and return to their friendship. No more jealous glares over an imaginary girl.

"My offer still stands, you know."

"Wuh?" Goku popped back out of his own thoughts to see Brolli smiling. He aimed a finger at Goku's hands and clothes-beamed the gloves back into wristbands.

"You can still come live with me; while I admit my home isn't quite as big as this castle, it's pretty comfortable, I've even got a couple hired maids, I'm sure they'd love to meet you."

Goku stared back at him in disbelief, "You're kidding; after all that stuff you still want me as a roommate?"

"You fight like a champion, waltz like a dream, have the sweetest disposition of all the saiyajin I've ever met, and your cosplaying potential is heart-poundingly high! Of course my offer still stands!" he exclaimed.

"O-ohh." Goku fiddled with his wristband, "That's nice of you."

"You don't have to answer right away; I'm not going to pressure you like Vejita would. Decide when you're ready! I'll even let you go for a test run!"

"T-thank you?" he felt unsure of what to say, "I, I gotta go now. Byebye!" Goku spun and ran off down the hall, his overwhelmed mind still trying to take it all in.

* * *

An unfamiliar knock came at the door.

"Raditz! Get the door!" Bardock shouted off in his direction from the other room, back in his default armor, "I can tell from here it's not Turles!" he added.

"Fine!" Raditz shouted back, then soon appeared in the hallway as he headed for the front door, "Thanks in advance for the..opposite of a warning, I guess?"

"Not a problem." Bardock returned to his lunch.

Raditz opened the door to find a mostly cheerful, yet slightly dizzy Goku standing there.

"Ossu!"

"Uh, hey." Raditz greeted him, "Surprised to see you here."

"Can I come in? I'm gonna come in." Goku let himself inside and Raditz closed the door behind him. This was an average-looking home. Nothing that unusual, not unless you counted the saiyajin-sized kitchen, but in this kingdom that was also normal, "You guys said earlier I'm one of your family members, right?"

"Well, we thought you might be. My younger brother Kakarrotto went missing when he was a baby, and it happened in the mountains near Gyu Kingdom, and he looked a lot like you, so..."

"Then I'm him. At, at least for a little while."

Confusion splattered all over Raditz's face, "What are you talking about?"

"I don't wanna go yet! Not before I get a chance to do some training and learn special techniques and go on wild adventures all over the island exploring and fighting strong guys!" Goku explained, "B-but I don't wanna live here forever either! I wanna go back to my home in Gyu Kingdom where my friends 'n family are when I'm done here."

"Okay..." Raditz trailed off.

"And I can't really, I mean, Veggie-ta 'n Buu-ra, and Bralee all offered to take me in, but, but, I dunno! I'm just not used to all that 'n it makes my brain all damp 'n I'm scared that if I took any of 'um up on it I really would stay there forever cuz I think I got it hard for all that softness!" Goku blurted out, frightened.

"Well you're not gonna find any "softness" here." Raditz folded his arms.

Bardock grunted in agreement from the kitchen, his mouth full of fish.

"I know." Goku replied.

"And we still don't actually know if you're my younger brother."

"I know."

"And even if we keep your temporary residence a secret, it's still possible Vegeta or Brolli will figure it out eventually."

"I know." Goku stared back up at him earnestly.

Raditz sighed and turned towards Bardock's direction, "Tousan? Whaddya say?"

"He wants to pretend to temporarily be Kakarrotto? Let him." Bardock took another bite of food, "If it doesn't work out he can always go home. If it does, we'll take him to the hospital and get a paternity test done to find out if he actually is him."

"YAHOO!" Goku cheered before the last of his adrenaline kicked off, "I'm gonna go take a nap now. I have not slept well."

"Guest room's down the hall on your right." Raditz said, "If you're really going to fight Vegeta tomorrow morning, you're gonna need it."

* * *

"Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Bonus Round of the tournament!" a still-not-100-percent, but close-to-it King Bejito announced through the loudspeaker, "We wish to welcome back our tournament's champion, Son Goku!"

Cheers erupted in the crowd as Goku, feeling much better and more like himself after a good night's sleep, waved to them.

"You'll keep him safe, right?" Chi-Chi tugged on Bardock's sleeve, concerned.

"Tch, I can't promise anything; Goku's stronger than I am." he muttered.

"We'll do our best." Raditz added in, trying to smooth things over.

"And the challenger, my son, Prince Vegeta Oujisama!"

Vegeta stood across from Goku in the ring, his arms crossed as his long cape flowing in the breeze. He had on an impressive amount of armor that glistened in the sunlight.

"And Goku-san won't be staying for too long, right? Maybe a week, two weeks tops?"

Bardock shrugged, "How should I know, he didn't tell us."

"I think he just wants to see what's on the rest of the island. Don't worry, I'll show him around when I get the free time." Raditz explained.

"So!" Vegeta smirked as he assumed an attack pose, "Have you made your decision yet?"

"Yeah, I kind of have." Goku smirked back. He was shifting into battle mode, something Vegeta hadn't gotten to see up close yet, and to the prince it was fascinating to watch.

"Each time I encounter you, you become more and more interesting." the ouji chuckled, "I wonder what else I still don't know."

"Well, maybe Veggie-tah will have the time to find out." Goku smiled back.

Vegeta's eyes widened, stunned for just long enough a moment for Goku to whip nyoi-bo out of its case and thrust the bo staff forward.

"NYOI-BO EXTEND!" the staff socked Vegeta in the stomach, knocking him backward.

Aggravated, Vegeta blasted off into the sky, taking nyoi-bo and a stubborn Goku with him. With the pole still extended, Goku found himself hovering only five feet or so off the ground as he held onto it, "Nyoi-bo!" he shouted at it. The bo staff began to shrink back down to its original size while simultaneously pulling Goku further up into the sky and towards Vegeta. Once he was there he dropped his hold on nyoi-bo and began to exchange a series of punches and kicks with the prince, using his feet kamehameha to keep himself aloft.

"That's quite a creative workaround you've got there, Goku!" Vegeta shouted at him above the battle noise and the roars of the crowd, "But you know, there's one thing it's lacking that can only be found in genuine bukujutsu!" he swung his leg up and clocked Goku in the head, causing him to temporarily lose his concentration and go plummeting halfway down before he got a hold of the ki concentration again, "Actually, make that two things! Agility, and the ability to use your legs." he spun nyoi-bo around between his fingers for a moment, then turned and hurled it out of the ring where it landed beside the edge of the wall, "I do admire your weapon, but isn't it better for us to fight on even terms?"

"Y-yeah, I guess so." Goku replied, grimly smiling back up at him.

"So why don't you ask me to come on down?"

"That wouldn't be any fun." slowly weakening the amount of ki emitting from his feet, Goku landed back on the platform, "It'd be way more challenging, if I can shoot you right out of the sky."

Vegeta's smirk broadened, "BWAHAHA! You are something wonderful!"

Goku focused on Vegeta's ki. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "KAIO-KEN!"

The ouji stared back, confused, "Kaio-whaOUFHHHH!" in a glowing red blaze of speed Goku was suddenly back up in the air, his knee connecting with Vegeta's chin and knocking the ouji off-balance. The furious speed at which he was attacking with barely gave Vegeta time to defend. Goku raised his arms into the air and landed a hit against the prince's side, sending him spiraling down to the ground where he hit the ring with such gravity that it spread cracks throughout. Goku landed easily on his feet across from Vegeta. The red ki aura was gone, and he was back to base.

"That was insane!" to Goku's astonishment, Vegeta picked himself up; bloody, but no worse for wear.

"WEH!?" Goku stumbled back, shocked.

"If we weren't surrounded by a crowd of thousands I'd have you right now." the prince grinned viciously at him, "But first, let's finish this, shall we?" he powered up, and his aura began to make the ground around them quake and the skies cloud up. Vegeta's ki aura glowed with blue-white light, "Come on, Son Goku. Show me what you've got!"

_::I really don't wanna do this, and it'll be really unsafe if I go at it too long, but...::_ "KAIO-KEN X2!" Goku shouted ran at the ouji while forming a ball of ki in his hands. As he reached him at a speed much faster than Vegeta could see, he let loose a kamehameha at point-blank range.

For Vegeta, it was as though only half a second passed between him standing there on the platform and him with his back suddenly embedded two feet deep into the cement wall ring just below the stands.

Goku let go of his kaio-ken x2 and fell to his knees, his body making small shudders of pain from the exertion.

The crowd grew silent from confusion as to what just happened in the ring.

"Now...that..." Vegeta's voice came from within the wall as a sudden burst of fear fully awakened Goku back to the world around him, "..is a very interesting..ughn...te-technique." he pulled himself free of the wall. Most of his armor was now gone, exposing the battle shirt and pants underneath. The ouji hovered above the grass, "But it obviously takes a heavy toll on your body. Those muscle spasms can't be comfortable."

Goku swallowed heavily. Sure Vegeta had said he could have the money no matter if he won or not, but that was also back when Vegeta was certain that he would be the one boarding and taking care of Goku. Once he found out that Goku had chosen to live at Bardock and Raditz's home instead; he might not give Goku the money "no matter what". The only way to get it for certain was to win this fight, _::But my body hurts so much.::_ Goku struggled as he stood up. Vegeta landed across from him on the ring, _::And he's so strong! How can he stand all that and still be ok?!::_

"Well?" Vegeta asked, "Are we going to continue or not?"

"We are, but I can't go on for much longer, so we're gonna end it here."

"A pleasant assertion." Vegeta formed the beginning of a ki ball in his hands, "You don't look all that conscious at the moment, Oujo-chan." what the prince thought at first was blushing soon turned out to be something else entirely. He couldn't hear the words spoken as the sound of the wind around them grew louder at the attack name's invocation, but Vegeta pretty much figured it out.

Kaio-ken X3.

The explosion of the ki beam Goku released on him engulfed Vegeta's beam along with the ouji himself, and this time when Vegeta was knocked out of the ring, he really did land on the grass. The grass just outside the stadium walls in the parking lot. The hole Goku's blast had made now gave those in the audience behind him a clear view of their vehicles from their seats.

Goku's body seized itself as he flashed out of kaio-ken X3. He let out a cry of pain as he collapsed on the ring, conscious, but incredibly hurt.

Vegeta let out a groan from the parking lot, "T-truly, truly incredible."

Bejito stood there in the announcer's booth with Vejitto and Gogeta, his jaw ajar and his eyes bugging out of his head. He composed himself and cleared his throat, "Ah, well then. It, looks like the winner of the Bonus Round is...Son Goku!"

Roars of entertainment, excitement, and a little confusion rippled throughout the crowded audience. Chi-Chi bounced up and down with delight before running out onto the ring, "GOKU-SAN! You did it!"

"I...did..." he smiled back through the pain.

"Here!" she sneakily held out a small item, "Senzu bean." Chi-Chi whispered, "Just pretend you're still hurt after you take it so no one gets suspicious." she pushed it into his mouth.

Goku chewed and swallowed the crunchy bean. Almost instantly his body was fully healed and the feeling of full health flooding through him put a big grin on his face, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." she smiled, proud of him.

* * *

"Aww, see, it all worked out!" Goku peered down at the typewriter.

"For now. I still plan to write a spicy epilogue solely for the eyes of yours truly once the two of you get out of my room." the ouji explained, grinning at him.

"Uwehh." Goku frowned.

"Vegeta!" Bulma thwacked him on the head with his rolled-up story, "Not nice!"

"Know what's not nice? The fact that we've come all this way and there's still no movie update." Vegeta pointed out.

"Yeah, well, I can't do anything about that." Bulma sighed, then cheered up, "Still, it's been an interesting experience to play editor to you."

"I mostly appreciate your commentary." he replied.

Goku sweatdropped at their seemingly identical moods in terms of their thoughts on each others' work, "So, since Veggie-tah's done now...does that mean we can spar?" he grinned.

"If you don't plan on throwing anything else at my head outside of the battleground, then yes." Vegeta smirked wryly, "We'll go spar now."

"YAHOO!" Goku cheered, "I'm so excited! Come on Veggie-tah, let's go!" he reached to grab for Vegeta's gloved hands.

"Wait! Will you wait a second!" he snapped, "I just have one more thing to type, and that's-"

* * *

~*THE END*~

12:59 PM 9/25/2012


End file.
